At 8:00  am, June 25 on Beijing time, more than 30 government officials of  Ministry of Public Works from the Bahamas, gathered in the cloud to  participate in the online China-Bahamas Sponge City Construction and  Technology Sharing Forum organized by Ministry of Public Works of the  Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China  in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and our university. Mr. Desmond  Thomas Bannister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Works of  the Bahamas, Ms. Dai Qingli, Ambassador of China to the Bahamas, Ms. He  Ying, Vice President of our university and Ms. Dai Ying, Vice Dean of  our college attended the forum and delivered speeches.

On the exploration and practice of the sponge city, an expert from Shanghai Longilat Architectural Design & Research Institute shared China's experience and technology from concepts, policy basis, planning key points, technical routes and typical cases, and she looked forward to the construction of the sponge city in the Bahamas as well. Later, the two sides discussed how to learn from China's successful experience and adapt measures to local conditions to promote the construction in the Bahamas.

A few days ago, in a meeting with Ms. Dai Qingli, Mr. Bannister mentioned his training experience of Ministerial Workshop on Urban Planning and Construction in Developing Countries organized by our university in June 2018, and he was deeply impressed by Shanghai's urban planning and construction. In May 2019, Ms. He Ying made a return visit to the Bahamas and exchanged ideas with Mr. Bannister and other participants. As Shanghai has rich experience and advanced technology in the construction of sponge cities and the control of urban water-logging, Mr. Bannister hoped that China can provide relevant technical training and support to the Bahamas.

In Mr. Bannister’s speech, he once again recalled the wonderful training experience in 2018 and thanked our university for hosting this online forum. He said that China and the Bahamas are highly complementary and have broad prospects for cooperation, especially in urban planning and construction. Therefore, this forum provided a new model and channel for the two countries to strengthen technical exchanges and cooperation in various fields.

Ms. Dai Qingli pointed out that the Bahamas is an important country and partner for China in the Caribbean. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 24 years ago, the development of China-Bahamas relations has kept a good momentum, with mutual political trust further enhanced, pragmatic cooperation continuously deepened, and people-to-people exchanges growing more vigorous. After Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 epidemic, China extended a helping hand to the Bahamas in times of need, actively supported the Bahamas in the post-disaster reconstruction and joined hands to fight against the epidemic, which injected new connotations into the friendship between the two countries.

Ms.  He Ying said that this forum was an opportunity to explore new areas of  cooperation under the epidemic. She sincerely hoped to expand the  cooperation through exchanges in this new historical stage, work  with the Bahamas to reach more consensus in the fields of education,  training, and technology sharing, and jointly write a new chapter in the  cooperation between the two countries.

Written by: Zhou Dejiang, Guan Rui

Photographed by: Li Zheng

Reviewed by: Chen Wei