{"id":27829,"date":"2026-01-08T05:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T05:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=27829"},"modified":"2026-01-08T05:19:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T05:19:29","slug":"china-focus-global-mayors-eye-cooperation-in-ice-and-snow-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=27829","title":{"rendered":"China Focus: Global mayors eye cooperation in ice and snow economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Representatives attend the main dialogue session of the “Global Mayors Dialogue in Harbin” in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2026. (Xinhua\/Zhang Tao)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mayors from around the world jointly lit the torch marking the opening of a dialogue event in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, they also ignited a shared vision for developing the ice and snow economy and advancing cooperation among global winter cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Global Mayors Dialogue, starting Tuesday, brought together mayors and representatives from nations including Canada, Finland, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) to Harbin, hailed as China’s “Ice City.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the three-day event, delegates visited major city landmarks such as the century-old Central Street and the Harbin Ice-Snow World — the world’s largest ice and snow theme park, where the 42nd Ice and Snow Festival opened on Monday — gaining a first-hand experience of how the city is turning severe cold into gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Knack, mayor of Edmonton in Canada, which has maintained a sister-city relationship with Harbin for over 40 years, said that the annual Ice and Snow Festival has injected strong impetus into Harbin’s tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is something that I could have never imagined and the scope and the scale of what’s been created here is truly a wonder. It’s a profound privilege to be here to experience this and just see what has been created now,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His views were echoed by Nam Dong-gyeong, vice mayor of Bucheon in the ROK, also a sister city of Harbin. Nam noted that Harbin’s Ice and Snow Festival is far more than a simple cultural celebration — it’s a great example of how unique festivals can boost the ice and snow economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Knack and Nam said decades of sister-city cooperation with Harbin has yielded fruitful results in trade, education, culture and tourism, and expressed their hopes for deeper cooperation in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his sixth visit to Harbin, Heikki Kontiosalo, deputy speaker of the city council of Rovaniemi in Finland, expressed his continued amazement at the city’s ever-prospering ice and snow economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kontiosalo said Rovaniemi, located within the Arctic Circle and known as the hometown of Santa Claus, has a long snow season. This opens up lots of opportunities for the city to grow its winter tourism and help boost the economy in other ways, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He expressed hopes to strengthen cooperation with Harbin in areas including ice and snow technology, winter sports and related equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coinciding with the dialogue event, the inaugural Harbin International Ice and Snow Expo commenced on Tuesday in Harbin. Advanced ice-and-snow equipment, including industrial-grade unmanned snow-removal machines, snowmobiles and carbon fiber skis, is displayed, offering opportunities for international investment and cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, Harbin has established sister-city ties with 37 cities in 28 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Harbin has always embraced the world with an open attitude,” said Li Mian, the city’s executive vice mayor. He also highlighted the Global Mayors Dialogue’s role as a bridge for sharing development experience and promoting cooperation in the ice and snow economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the origin of modern winter sports in China, the city recorded a total ice and snow economic output exceeding 160 billion yuan (about 22.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, accounting for about one-sixth of the national total, official data showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is positioning the ice and snow economy as a major driver of development and consumption, and its scale is expected to reach 1.2 trillion yuan by 2027 and 1.5 trillion yuan by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report from the China Tourism Academy shows that the country’s ice and snow economy exceeded a scale of 1 trillion yuan in 2025, with more than 14,000 tourism-related ice and snow enterprises operating nationwide. \u25a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Representatives attend the main dialogue session of the “Global Mayors Dialogue in Harbin” in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2026. (Xinhua\/Zhang Tao)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Representatives attend the main dialogue session of the “Global Mayors Dialogue in Harbin” in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2026. (Photo by Zhang Shu\/Xinhua)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/english.news.cn\/20260107\/7e7c371c2a8f4c6c9d713710ac1dbc76\/c.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representatives attend the main dialogue session of the “Global Mayors Dialogue in Harbin” in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 7, 2026. (Xinhua\/Zhang Tao) As mayors from around the world jointly lit the torch marking the opening of a dialogue event in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, they also ignited a shared vision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[2307,26039,26038,12000,8564,9320],"class_list":["post-27829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-china-3","tag-chinese-experience-2","tag-global-city-mayors","tag-winter-economy-2","tag-winter-sports-2","tag-winter-tourism-2","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27831,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27829\/revisions\/27831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}