The Midlands Engine has signed an agreement with the Province of Zhejiang in China to promote science and technology co-operation between the regions.

The Midlands Engine is a coalition of councils, combined authorities, local enterprise partnerships (LEP), universities and businesses across the region, collectively working with the government to present the Midlands as an attractive region to live, work and visit.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the chair of the Midlands Engine Sir John Peace and Mr Gao Yingzhong, on behalf of Zhejiang’s Science and Technology Department.

The MoU is part of a growing relationship between the regions, with the aim of enhancing links between the Midlands and the Zhejiang province, which is an eastern coastal region south of Shanghai.

For the last three years a delegation of government officials from the city of Jinhua in China has visited Sandwell to strengthen existing ties of friendship and business. As we reported last December, in 2018 Sandwell Council welcomed the Chinese delegation to The Hawthorns, home to West Bromwich Albion Football Club.

Back in 2016 Sandwell Council and the Mayor of the city of Jinhua, in the Zhejiang province, signed a Friendship Agreement, with the aim of promoting common prosperity and development for the two regions.

The purpose of the recent MoU is to encourage co-operation between businesses and research organisations in the two countries, across a wide range of sectors, including green energy, manufacturing, digital and creative services, and life and health science technology.

Hopefully the agreement will encourage new partnerships, as well as further developing existing long-standing partnerships between the Midlands and the Chinese province, such as the Zhejiang campus of the University of Nottingham, the first of its kind in China.

We’ll keep you posted on any further news on the growing partnerships between the two regions.