Requirements and Approval Process of Signing International Friendly City Relations

Part One: Two essential conditions of signing international friendly relations:

2.Both parties have signed the Letter of Intent on the Establishment of Friendly Cooperative Relations for at least one year.

Part Two: Approval process:

1. The Foreign Affairs Office of Wujiang District submits a request for comment to the Foreign Affairs Office of Suzhou on the issue of the friendly city relation building agreement→the Foreign Affairs Office of Suzhou submits a request for comments to the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office→the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office seeks approval from the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries→get the reply from the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office (this procedure usually takes two months).

2. The people's government of Wujiang District submits application materials to the Suzhou Municipal People's Government→the Suzhou Municipal People’s Government reports the issue to the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government→after agreed by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government, the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office will submit materials to the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries to ask for instructions→the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries examines and approves the issue and gives a reply→the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office gives reply to the Foreign Affairs Office of Suzhou→the Foreign Affairs Office of Suzhou conveys the result to all the foreign affairs offices of the relevant city and district (this procedure usually takes seven to eight months).

3. If the application gets approved, cities of the two parties should sign a formal agreement on building an international friendly city relation according to the notice.