On October 9, Shi Zhijun, Secretary of the CPC Huai'an Municipal Committee, met with Joan Valadou, Consul General of France in Shanghai, and his delegation. Both sides engaged in in-depth discussions, aiming to deepen their friendship and strengthen economic and trade cooperation.

Shi warmly welcomed Joan Valadou and his delegation and briefly introduced Huai'an, focusing on its four well-known features: birthplace of great figures, the Grand Canal, culinary specialties, and distinctive culture. Shi mentioned that Huai'an is prioritizing building itself into a modern central city in the northern Yangtze River Delta. To achieve this, the city maintains its opening-up policy, leverages its comprehensive transportation network to develop a hub economy effectively, speeds up  new industrialization and the development of advanced manufacturing, expands strategic emerging industrial clusters, and keeps working on projects, stabilizing growth, and enhancing the environment. Its industrial economy is showing a stable and positive growth trend. In recent years, the economic and trade exchanges between Huai'an and France have been on the rise, with French companies like Albéa showing strong momentum in investing in Huai'an. There is broad potential for future industrial cooperation between the two sides. It is hoped that the Consulate General of the Republic of France in Shanghai will make efforts to facilitate connections between the two sides and encourage more French enterprises and economic and trade institutions to visit Huai'an for more cooperation. 

Joan Valadou expressed his gratitude for Shi's warm reception. He said that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, as well as the Sino-French Year of Cultural Tourism. He also noted that cooperation between France and Jiangsu Province, including economic and trade exchanges with Huai'an City, will continue to grow. The Consulate will give full play to its unique advantages to foster exchanges and cooperation between the two sides in areas such as industry, food, culture, education, and people-to-people exchanges. This effort will contribute to strengthening the friendship between the two peoples further and writing a new chapter of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.