From March 13 to 15, the 6th Working Meeting of UCLG Members of Chinese Mainland was held in Wuhan, Hubei province, in which Li Xiaolin, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and Zhou Wenzhong, secretary-general of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) were invited to deliver important speeches. Liu Baochun, director general of Foreign Affairs Office of Guangzhou government attended the working meeting and made thematic speeches on the preparation for the 2nd Guangzhou Award. About fifty representatives of the 22 UCLG members of Chinese Mainland were attending the meeting.

Li spoke highly of the outstanding performances of Chinese cities in UCLG in the year of 2013. For instance, Chen Jianhua, mayor of Guangzhou was elected as UCLG Co-president in the 4th UCLG World Council Meeting held in Rabat, Morocco in October, 2013, which was the third consecutive time that the executive head of Guangzhou had been elected as UCLG Co-president after the 2007 and 2010 UCLG world council meetings. Li stated that it was important for UCLG members of Chinese Mainland to recognize the profound significance of Chen’s election as UCLG Co-president and to jointly develop the brand effects in UCLG.

Liu pointed out that the significance of UCLG had been unequivocally emphasized in Blue Book of World Cities - “Under the leadership of UCLG, transnational inter-city partnerships are developing at a fast pace, with inter-city cooperation becoming a new model of globalization”. In 2012, in cooperation with UCLG and the World Association of the Major Metropolises, Guangzhou set up Guangzhou Award, which, as Liu said, constituted a crucial strategic platform for Guangzhou to advance its new urbanization drive and to become an internationalized city. Kadir Topbas, UCLG president and mayor of Istanbul hailed Guangzhou Award as the “Nobel Prize of UCLG”. The 1st Guangzhou Award attracted 255 innovation initiatives from 153 cities of 56 countries and regions. Liu also informed the attendees that the preparations for the 2nd Guangzhou Award and Guangzhou International Urban Innovation Conference has been launched in full swing, extending an invitation to the attending cities to participate in the 2nd Guangzhou Award.

Furthermore, as Liu announced at the working meeting, to ensure the sustainable development of UCLG, Guangzhou is exploring the feasibility of setting up a long-term working institute (Urban Innovation Working Committee) under the UCLG framework, which will focus on urban innovation. Efforts are being exerted to enlist partners around the world for this long-term working institute. The proposal of Guangzhou for setting up such a long-term working institute will be put to a vote at the UCLG Executive Bureau Meeting in Liverpool in June, 2014.