Busan Signs Sister City Agreement with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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- Fully reinforcing exchanges and cooperation with East African hub cities
Busan Signs Sister City Agreement with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
The city of Busan has announced that it entered into a sister city agreement with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the Westin Josun Busan Hotel at 6 PM on June 15.
Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Albert John Chalamila, and the Mayor of Dar es Salaam, Omary Said Kumbilamoto, attended the signing ceremony to sign the agreement.
Dar es Salaam, located on the eastern coast of Africa, is a prosperous city and stepping-stone into East Africa. It is Tanzania’s top port city, the country’s main administrative center, and an international trade hub located on the Indian Ocean. Its importance in terms of trade makes Dar es Salaam similar to Busan both economically and geographically, in that Busan connects the Eurasian Continent and the Pacific, as Dar es Salaam plays a pivotal role in the Tanzanian transportation system.
As an African gateway and a logistics stronghold, Tanzania’s potential to develop is enormous. Tanzania has also served as an important nation in Korea’s diplomacy efforts towards Africa; since 1992, Korea and Tanzania have been building future-oriented relations through exchanges of high ranking officials, including presidents and prime ministers.
The sister city agreement was first discussed in April 2022, when the Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister Liberata Mulamula brought forth the proposal in a meeting with Busan Mayor Park. Following this, the Tanzanian Lands, Housing, and Human Settlements Developments Minister Angeline Mabula expressed the country’s intention to enter into a sister city agreement in November 2022.
In February, a delegation from Busan visited Tanzania and met the Tanzanian Regional Administration and Local Government Minister. There, they delivered Mayor Park’s letter for the sister city agreement. With all the active bilateral exchanges between the two cities taking place, the sister city agreement was recently finalized. It will be the third one of its kind following similar agreements with Kenya’s Mombasa and Angola’s Luanda.
With the signing of the sister city agreement, Busan will promote mutual exchanges and technological cooperation in diverse fields with Dar es Salaam, including port, logistics, fisheries, ICT, education, transportation, and waste treatment. Both cities plan to mutually cooperate on human resource exchanges, tourism, and urban green businesses.
Mayor Park stated, “Korea and Tanzania have been continuing cooperative relations in many areas, including the economy, culture, and tourism. The signing of this agreement will re-invigorated exchanges in a wide variety of areas, such as port, logistics, ICT, and waste treatment, between Dar es Salaam, a major gateway to East Africa, and Busan, a global hub city.” The Mayor also expects the agreement will become an opportunity to broaden Busan’s urban diplomacy scope and insight.
