Chengdu establishes sister-city relations with Melbourne

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, signed an agreement with Melbourne, Australia, on Monday, local time, to officially establish sister-city relations.

This makes Melbourne Chengdu's 40th sister city, while Chengdu becomes the first new sister city Melbourne has added in over 20 years, according to the Foreign Affairs Office of the Chengdu Municipal People's Government.

Melbourne Mayor Nicholas Reece described the agreement as a milestone moment for bilateral ties, noting that it marks a further deepening of cooperation in areas including innovation, education, culture, sports, and sustainable urban development.

On the same day, Chengdu Polytechnic and Australia's Box Hill Institute signed a memorandum of understanding on educational exchange, with both sides set to deepen cooperation in two-way faculty and student exchanges, joint curriculum development, and cultural study tours.

Chengdu-based Juna Technology signed an MoU with its Australian partner DIMER, and the Australia-China Association of Scientists and Entrepreneurs officially joined the "Chengdu & Partners" Program under the Chengdu Opening-up and International Cooperation Center.

Chengdu and Melbourne established an economic partnership in 2017 and friendly cooperative relations in 2024. Official statistics show that in the first eight months of this year, imports and exports between Chengdu and Australia reached 12.84 billion yuan ($1.93 billion), up 47.9 percent year-on-year.