European and Chinese officials call for city-to-city cooperation at EU-China Urbanisation Partnership Forum
Polis participated in the morning sub-forum on sustainable urban mobility representing the members of the network, as well as the SOLUTIONS project.
EU representatives as well as Chinese participants both underlined the added value of cities cooperating with each other on the local level. Site vists and peer reviews, such as the Urban Mobility and Air Quality Study Tour for Chinese representatives that took place in January 2015, were mentioned as one of the most efficient tools to help local officials and technicians make investment and planning decisions. Speakers and participants from both sides also showed considerable interest in BRT systems, first implemented in the SOLUTIONS partner city Curitiba, as a cost-effective, quick-to-implement solution.
In the afternoon session Xu Shaoshi, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, called for the creation of an EU-China platform for cooperation and city pairing that would match city clusters and share experience. He most importantly called for a structured programme for pilot cities and demonstration sites in both China and Europe.
Further aspects of EU-China cooperation that were mentioned were bringing planning expertise from Europe to China, as well as developing Public-Private partnerships (PPPs) in China to finance transport infrastructure projects.
More information on the EU-China urbanisation partnership forum is available on the event website.