The signing ceremony of the Strategic Cooperation Agreement between the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and the Hainan Provincial People’s Government was held in Haikou on March 28, 2013. Zhou Ji, President of the CAE, and Luo Baoming, Party Secretary of Hainan Province, delivered speeches on behalf of both sides at the ceremony. Pan Yunhe, Executive Vice President of the CAE, and Tan Li, Executive Vice Governor of Hainan Provincial People’s Government, signed on the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on behalf of the Academy and the Province. The signing ceremony was presided over by Wang Lu, Vice Governor of Hainan Province, and attended by Shen Guofang, former Vice President of the CAE, CAE Members Tang Qisheng and Guan Huashi, Bai Yuliang, Secretary-General of CAE, Huang Guotai, Deputy Secretary-General of Hainan Provincial Party Committee, Feng Ming, Deputy Secretary-General of Hainan Provincial People’s Government, as well as Ye Zhenxing, Party Secretary of the Science and Technology Department of Hainan Province. 

Zhou extended warm congratulations on the signing of the Agreement on behalf of CAE in this address. He also thanked Hainan Province for the vigorous support it had provided for CAE through the years. Zhou said that as the youngest province and the only provincial-level Special Economic Zone in China, as well as the province located at the southernmost tip of China’s territory, Hainan Province was in a prominent strategic position. At present, the construction of Hainan province to be an international tourism island had risen to be a national strategy, and, what was more, Sansha City had been established last year. In addition, the official report of the 18th National Congress of CPC had put forward, for the first time ever, the objectives of building a “Beautiful China” and a “Marine Power” for the future. All of these meant that Hainan Province was facing rare opportunities for development and should have broad prospects for development.

Zhou pointed out that, as China’s think tank in the field of engineering science and technology, the Chinese Academy of Engineering took it as one of the major tasks to fulfill its duties to serve the local economic, social and scientific development through cooperative efforts made by the Academy and the Local Governments and Enterprises. As a matter of fact, CAE and the Hainan Provincial People’s Government had long maintained sound cooperative relations in the past years. A number of conferences for various advisory projects had been organized and attended by CAE Members; a number of academic forums and field trips had been conducted in Hainan Province; a series of surveys and study tours had been made by a large number of CAE Members in Hainan on the construction of the International Tourism Island as well as its ecological development; and as a result, a series of constructive suggestions and recommendations had been made by these CAE Members, aiming at helping with the future development of Hainan Province. 
 

Zhou also said that, the signing of the agreement was an important milestone for the collaboration between CAE and the Hainan Province, marking a brand new stage for cooperation. Zhou also pledged that CAE would earnestly implement the Strategic Cooperation Agreement, giving full play to the comprehensive advantages of CAE Members as well as their research teams as being multidisciplinary, cross-department and cross-sectoral, thus playing more significant roles in strategic consultation, sci-tech services, academic guidance and talent cultivation. CAE would further strengthen strategic research and consultation services according to major strategic demands in the economic and social development of Hainan, and engage more CAE Members in the modernization of Hainan Province, striving to make positive contributions to its scientific development. 

Luo Baoming said in his speech that the signing of the Strategic Cooperation Agreement marked another solid step for the longstanding cooperation between CAE and Hainan Province. He thanked CAE for the sci-tech services it had offered to boost the economic and social development of Hainan, who also briefed on general information of Hainan’s recent development. Luo said that, in order to achieve leaping development, Hainan should make full use of the advantage as a latecomer in terms of sci-tech innovation, taking the road of urbanization as well as sci-tech innovation with Hainan characteristics. Luo also requested that more scientific and technological achievements be transfered by CAE Members in Hainan Province in the future. 

Luo stressed that, Hainan, as a province that enjoyed vast ocean areas, as well as advantages in terms of location, environment and policy, could provide a spacious platform for CAE Members to give full play to their wisdom. Luo also promised that Hainan Province should make full use of and treasure the precious opportunity of signing the strategic cooperation agreement with CAE, making whatever efforts it could to enhance further collaboration. (By Zhao Wencheng, April 2013; translated by Liu Chang)