CEBU CITY: The committee tasked to oversee the preparation for the Sinulog Festival next year inspected on Monday the South Road Properties (SRP) and the Cebu City Sports Center following proposals to hold the grand parade in honor of Sr. Sto. Niño in the old venue.
Acting Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia led the Sinulog Executive Committee in checking the construction of bleachers at the SRP where the celebration was first held since the inception of the festival in 1980.
Garcia also accompanied the committee in inspecting the sports center, the usual venue of the yearly festival’s grand parade.
The inspection was conducted following the proposal of Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia in a meeting with Sinulog Foundation Inc. executive director Jojo Labella on Dec. 6 to hold the grand parade at the sports center in exchange for the provincial government’s PHP20 million donation.
Some mayors from Cebu’s municipal and component cities also supported the governor’s proposal to go back to the old venue, saying the sports center
has been ‘home to Sinulog Festival’ ever since.
The acting mayor said he also wanted to finalize the decision for the venue following the suggestion of some members of the Cebu City Council to bring back the Sinulog parade to the old venue to prevent a repeat of monstrous traffic build-up in the city due to numerous roadblocks to give way for the celebration at the SRP area.
‘Cebu City Sports Center is the more logical and more practical venue for Sinulog 2024,’ he said.
However, Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera expressed reservations about the proposal, pointing out the construction of Bus Rapid Transit terminals on Osmeña Blvd. as well as the continued demolition of two skywalks.
Councilor Philip Zafra, chair of the Sinulog Executive Committee, said both venues are considered, suggesting that the grand parade could begin in one place and end in the other.
‘We need to have a walkthrough because we need to iron out things for the Sinulog grand parade route,’ he added.
Source: Philippines News Agency
Hanoi: Substantive cooperation between China and Vietnam as well as the two countries’ relations are standing before more opportunities than challenges, according to Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo.
Xiong Bo made the assessment at his interview granted to the press on the threshold of the state visit to Vietnam by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping on December 12-13.
China and Vietnam have similar political regimes, compatible views and ideals, similar development paths, and extensive common interests. The cultures of the two countries also have many similarities. These factors are all good conditions, he stressed.
In the new situation, the two sides need to further exploit and promote their unique advantages, and promote cooperation in strategic connectivity, and promotion of linkages of the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative and the ‘Two Corridors, One Belt’ framework, he proposed.
The diplomat emphas
ised the need for the two countries to strengthen connectivity, with roads as infrastructure, sea as transportation, aviation as flight connections, and on the internet as e-commerce cooperation, with priority given to cooperation in transport infrastructure, particularly hard infrastructure such as railways and expressways.
According to Ambassador Xiong Bo, China and Vietnam are important trade partners of each other, as China is the Vietnam’s largest, while the latter is also the former’s fourth biggest.
He cited statistics from the General Administration of Customs of China as saying that in the first 11 months of this year, Vietnam’s export turnover to China increased by 3.7% year-on-year, while the trade deficit decreased by 24.8%.
In ASEAN, Vietnam is the only country that maintains growth in exports to China, and China is one of Vietnam’s few export markets that maintains positive growth momentum, the diplomat said, adding that China is ready to expand the import of agricultural products, especially
fruits, from Vietnam. In the three quarters of this year, the import turnover of agricultural products from the Southeast Asian nation surged by 160% compared to the same period last year. Notably, in the first 10 months, China’s import value of Vietnamese durian hit 1.95 billion USD, far exceeding the set target of 1 billion USD set out for the whole year.
The ambassador also shared that recently he met many Chinese delegations and tourists visiting Vietnam, who said that Vietnamese durian is very delicious, reasonably priced and widely favoured in China.
In addition, Vietnamese fresh coconut is also very promising, as China is speeding up procedures as well as consulting on quarantine procedures for the import.
In addition, China’s demand for coconut imports continues to increase. Hainan island, the main coconut producer in China, yields only 250 million coconut fruits per year, while China’s annual market demand is up to 2.6 billion, excluding 1.5 billion nuts that need to be processed.
Meanwhile, in V
ietnam, there are more than 180,000 hectares of agricultural land used to grow coconut, making the country currently rank seventh in the coconut production worldwide.
Currently, coconut growing localities are making great efforts to improve product quality. Notably, to export this fruit to China smoothly, businesses have invested in building organic farms. More than 7,000 hectares have been recognised to meet organic standards.
With efforts of farmers and businesses to change their methods to adapt to export markets, including China, the diplomat expressed his hope that Vietnam will soon receive a “passport” to export fresh coconut to the Chinese market./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency
