Tainan welcomes new international partner! Tainan signed a friendship city agreement with West Covina City on May 11 at Tainan City Hall. Demonstrating that the city's international affairs will not be hindered by the pandemic, Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che was pleased to announce that West Covina (USA) is now officially a friendship city of Tainan. In the future, the two cities will have more exchanges in education, culture, and business to benefit citizens on both sides.
This partnership was initiated by Tainan City Council Speaker Kuo Sin-liang when he visited the US in February earlier this year. West Covina Mayor Tony Wu expressed to Kuo that the city wished to enter a relationship agreement with Tainan. So when Mayor Huang learned about it, he immediately wrote to Mayor Wu to further discuss this matter and those exchanges led to today's formal agreement.
Due to the current pandemic situation, Mayor Huang suggested that delegates from both parties could move their discussions online, instead of meeting in person. The official agreement was signed via “old-school” snail mail – an original copy signed by Mayor Huang was mailed to the West Covina City Mayor. It is expected that after the pandemic is over, both sides can sit down and talk more about future interactions. Mayor Huang remarked that this is a significant partnership since Mayor Wu is also from Tainan and has strong connections with his home city. He is excited that the cities can form such a partnership.
Mayor Huang Wei-che also mentioned that during the height of the global pandemic, Tainan City Government sent out letters of encouragement and noodles made in Tainan to sister cities and friendship cities in the States and Japan to show our support. Although West Covina was not Tainan's friendship city yet, Huang still sent over a parcel to Mayor Wu, which led to the following interactions between the two cities. Huang said that now the partnership is official, he cannot wait to share more of Tainan's culture and high-quality produce with Mayor Wu and West Covina City.
Currently Tainan has 44 sister cities and friendship cities. West Covina City in southern California is the third partnership city Tainan has in the state of California, and Tainan’s partnerships with the other two northern California cities: Monterey City and San Jose, have spanned several decades.