Officials from Ningbo, China, are benchmarking Suncheon's practices in human resources, urban planning and garden conservation.

Civil servants from Ningbo, China, tour the new Suncheon City Hall. [Suncheon City]
Civil servants from Ningbo, China, tour the new Suncheon City Hall. [Suncheon City]

Two civil servants from Ningbo, a sister city of Suncheon in China's Zhejiang Province, have begun a two-month exchange posting at Suncheon City Hall that will run through the end of the year.

The dispatch was arranged under a mutual civil servant exchange agreement signed between the two cities in 2006, with China covering all costs of the training program, according to Suncheon City.

The two officials are the director of the research division at Ningbo's Social Security Bureau and the director of the Damu Bay Development and Construction Management Center in Xiangshan County.

Over the two months, the pair will gain firsthand experience in Suncheon's administrative practices across human resources management, urban planning and construction, and garden and ecological conservation — knowledge they plan to apply to their own city's administration upon returning home.

They will rotate through key departments — including those overseeing advanced industries, the national garden and Suncheonman Wetland — spending one to two weeks in each, with the aim of identifying cooperative and exchange projects in tourism, urban planning and the local economy. A Chinese-speaking Suncheon City employee will accompany them as an interpreter.

Lee Hyeong-geum, head of the general affairs division at Suncheon City Hall, said Suncheon had previously sent its own officials on exchange postings to Ningbo. "This exchange will be a meaningful opportunity to share the best administrative know-how of both cities," Lee said.

In December, Suncheon Mayor Son Hun-mo is set to lead a delegation to China at Ningbo's invitation to discuss ways to strengthen friendly cooperation and expand exchanges between the two cities.


parkds@heraldcorp.com