Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) is hopeful of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Dali Prefecture in Yunnan province, China to seal the friendship city pact between Kuching and Dali by November this year.

Datuk Bandar of DBKU Datuk Abang Abdul Wahap Abang Julai said he “is waiting for who is going to be our minister” and the city council had already explained to its Dali counterpart about the current situation.

According to Abdul Wahap, the new minister in-charge is likely to be made known in the next couple of days.

He said he had met with the chief minister to deliberate the subject matter and the state government had been working out a plan.

“We have written to them to say that only my minister in-charge will be able to put down the signature (for the MoU). Because what we have signed is the letter of intent only. For the actual MoU to be signed, we are now planning to have our minister in-charge probably along with the chief minister to have a trip to Dali to make it formalised,” he said when met by journalists at Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house at BCCK here yesterday.

Prior to the state election on May 7, former Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Office (Islamic Affairs) Datuk Daud Abdul Rahman was the minister in-charge of DBKU.

To a question, he said DBKU had contacted China’s consul general here to invite officials of the Dali Prefecture to visit Kuching for the City Day celebration in August.

He added that the Sarawak government delegation would then call on the Dali officials by November, if not earlier – in September.

Elaborating, he said the MoU on friendship city pact was a follow-up to the MoU signed between the governments of Sarawak and Yunnan province when Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh was the Local Government and Community Development Minister.

He said the plan to shift from state-to-state to city-to-city partnership was a move to see more free flow of exchange between the two cities.

“We are looking at more than mutual (trade) because Dali has a vast majority of Muslim population. So there may be more people-to-people relationships. They can come here for studies, trade and so forth.

“I personally am very excited about it because this is the first time we have this contact with China. And we can have exchange programmes.”

On June 23, an official of Foreign Affairs Office of Dali Prefecture Xie Yubao told a media delegation from Sarawak that he looked forward to inking the Mou with DBKU within this year.

He said the MoU was scheduled to be signed early last month but was called off due to the state election in May.

“Either they come to us or we go to Kuching. We hope to foster closer ties with DBKU so as to enhance closer rapport between Dali and Kuching,” he said at a dialogue in Dali held in conjunction with a recent media familiarisation trip organised by China’s consulate here.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Lim How Pim

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