Officials expect more Israeli visitors to sister city in China

Haifa will encourage its residents to visit Chengdu to better understand their sister city in China's Sichuan province, said officials from Haifa Municipality in Israel.

They believe Israeli people would like the Chinese city which is best known for its pandas and ancient history.

They made the remarks while meeting a government delegation from Chengdu with which they established the tie in 2013.

Since then, frequent exchanges have been conducted between Chengdu, a famous tourist destination and center of science and technology in Southwest China, and Haifa, the smallest city in the world with three Nobel Prize laureates.

Home to some 271,000 people, Haifa is the metropolis of the north in Israel.

Aviva Shpigelshtein, deputy secretary general of Haifa Municipality, has visited Chengdu twice since the tie was forged between the two cities.

"I have seen pandas twice (in a base with more than 100 captive pandas in Chengdu) and have been impressed with the Du Fu Thatched Cottage (which venerates Du Fu (AD712-770), one of the greatest Chinese poets in ancient China) and the Jinsha Site Museum (which houses the logo of China Cultural Heritage unearthed from an archaeological site dating back to some 3,000 years)," she said.

Endorsing her view, Hedva Almog, deputy mayor of Haifa Municipality, said people from her city would like Chengdu because Jewish people value the preservation of ancient culture.

The deputy mayor also extended her invitation for business people in Chengdu to invest in the Haifa Life Sciences Park which is her country's first dedicated business park, building their research and development centers there.

"It would be a win-win solution thanks to the wisdom of the Jewish and Chinese people," she said.