Pres Ali attends opening of FISU World University Games in Sichuan

President Dr Irfaan Ali has attended the opening ceremony of the 31st FISU World University Games 2023 – one of the largest sporting events globally, and one that is aimed at uniting athletes.
Ali also met with the six University of Guyana athletes who are representing Guyana at the Games. The table tennis players are Elishaba Johnson and Niran Bissu, while the track and field athletes are Shimar Velloza, Malinda Williams, Nolex Holder and Leoni Adams. Further, he made a financial contribution to the athletes.
This is the first time Guyana is participating in those Games.
Ali was given a grand welcome by Government officials of Chengdu – the largest city in Sichuan, and the sixth largest in China.

His participation comes on the heels of a Private Sector delegation that is currently in China for one week, during which Ali will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Government officials.
This is President Ali’s first official visit to China, and he is accompanied by Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Hugh Todd.
The FISU World University Games bring together athletes from around the world to contest in archery, artistic gymnastics, athletics, badminton, basketball, diving, fencing, judo, rhythmic gymnastics, rowing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, water polo and wushu.
Word it that participants from over 170 countries and regions have already trickled into China for the 12-day sporting event. The biennial World University Games, formerly known as the Universiade, began in 1959 and was last held in Naples.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also attended the opening ceremony, was slated to host bilateral engagements with visiting leaders. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka are among those in attendance.

Urban Planning

President Ali also visited Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower in Shanghai, where his delegation was given a guided tour of the massive 1,536-foot structure that creates a picture of ‘twin dragons playing with pearls.’
Visiting the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, a guided tour of the six-storey building which displays Shanghai’s urban planning and development, was also facilitated.
Government has been aiming to realise a new regional and urban development shift sparked by building 700 homes at Palmyra, with supplementary infrastructural works totalling some $10 billion. This urban hub would be established to international standards in which a stadium, hotel, malls and massive private gated communities are to be developed.
The other major project is Silica City, Guyana’s first smart urban centre, which is intended to be a smart city powered by renewable energy and developed with the Administration’s revised Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS); the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; and Goal 11 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which speaks to building sustainable cities and communities.
As at 2022, China had an urbanization rate of 64 per cent, and was expected to reach 75-80 per cent by 2035. Simultaneously, Guyana is seeking to strengthen its international agenda through diplomacy, and this visit will further strengthen ties with China – one of the country’s major bilateral partners.
When his visit to China was announced, Ali shared that cooperation been the two countries straddled almost all areas of national development, including agriculture, culture, defence cooperation, education, health, information communication technology, infrastructural development, private investment, security, sport, trade, and transportation.
Trade between Guyana and China has been increasing over the past few years, and at the end of 2022, bilateral trade in goods had jumped to US$1.88 billion. In May, China’s Ambassador to Guyana, Guo Haiyan, acknowledged that there is scope for even greater relations between the two countries. (G12)