On September 15, Ni Qiang, Vice Governor of Hainan Province, met with John Edwards, the UK Trade Commissioner for China who was in Haikou attending the 2021 World New Energy Vehicle Congress (WNEVC).

Ni Qiang, Vice Governor of Hainan Province, meets with John Edwards, the UK Trade Commissioner for China on September 15.

Ni congratulated the UK as the guest country of honor at the 2021 WNEVC. He introduced that the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP) had gotten off to a good start. From 2018 to 2020, Hainan added 763,000 new market entities, which was more than the sum in the past 30 years, showing that the market was taking an optimistic view of Hainan's development. According to the White Paper on the Construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port (2021) officially released in June this year, Hainan is to build a "3+1" modern industrial system supported by tourism, modern service industry, high-tech industry and high-efficiency tropical agriculture. Ni hoped that Hainan and the UK would further strengthen cooperation in areas such as trade in services, civil aviation, new energy, education and health care, so as to share the benefits generated by the development of the FTP.

Edwards responded positively to Ni's proposals. He said that the UK and Hainan had sound basis for cooperation in many areas, and the British political and business circles were paying close attention to the development of the Hainan FTP. Based on the UK's advantages in architectural design, vocational education, sporting events, offshore wind power generation, automobile manufacturing and airport management, the embassy and consulates in China will encourage more British enterprises in related fields to visit Hainan and explore opportunities for cooperation.

Jo Hawley, the British Consul-General in Guangzhou, and representatives from Jaguar Land Rover, BP and other companies attended the meeting.

On behalf of Director-General Dai Zhen of the Foreign Affairs Office of Hainan Province, Deputy Director-General Zeng Xiaoming was present.

During his stay in Hainan, Edwards also held discussions with the provincial Department of Commerce and the Department of Industry and Information Technology.