Officials, managers from developing countries visit Chongli
- By Zhang Jiaqi
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 19, 2019
Fifty government officials and senior managers from 26 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and North and South America visited Chongli district of Zhangjiakou city in north China's Hebei province for an advance briefing of the host nation's experiences in regard to all the skiing and biathlon events at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games Nov. 18-22.
The five-day tour is one of the two field studies opened to those who are studying in the one-year International MBA program of the Emerging Markets Institute (EMI) of Beijing Normal University (BNU).
On the first day of the tour, the participants visited the Ice and Snow Museum in the district. The 6,000-square-meter museum is China's first and the largest of its kind.
Over the years, Chongli has developed its ice and snow industry from scratch, established a cluster of ski resorts, and even developed a world-famous brand, according to the museum's guide Liu Jie.
Ozobia Samuel Davies, public relation officer of Rokel Commercial Bank of Sierra Leone, used the word "eye-opening" to describe the museum tour.
After getting to know the history of skiing and China's efforts in developing the sport domestically and in preparing for the Winter Olympics, Davies said he saw how beautiful the planned venues of the 2022 Winter Olympics would be, and also the diverse culture presented by the museum.
Gladys Tamunodukobara Ebenezer is also one of those in the group. The civil servant in the department of youth sports affairs in Nigeria's Federal Civil Service Commission found the answer to her question why Chongli had been chosen for the Winter Olympics during a discussion with Wang Sizhou, deputy secretary of the district's Party committee.
Skiing enthusiasts discovered the ideal destination for indulging in their favorite sport, which has not only the requisite cold weather, but also geographical advantages for developing the ski-related sector; companies have been active in investing in the area, boosting the infrastructure construction of the ice and snow industries and other businesses in the district, Wang said.
Located about 200 kilometers northwest of Beijing, Chongli is now becoming increasingly famous not only among the world's skiing enthusiasts, but also among the general public since Beijing and Zhangjiakou won the bid to co-host the Games in 2015.
In the eyes of the bank officer Davies, the continuous investment and human capital can produce a multiplier effect that will allow Chongli to remain as a destination for investors even after the Winter Olympics.
"Chongli will boom, and it will develop 10 years from now into far more than it is today," he said.
Over the next few days, the EMI students will visit a ski resort, an ecological town and other sites in Chongli, and work out a report on the takeaways of the trip.
Zhang Jianchen, strategic development director of the BNU's EMI, said that the trip aimed to give the students some food for thought in terms of the practices and experience of poverty alleviation and new-type urbanization through the process of getting the students to know the district's development of the ice and snow industry and relevant sectors with opportunities brought by the Winter Olympics.
The International MBA program was jointly launched by China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Education in 2014, and over the past five years, 182 students from 61 developing countries have already graduated.
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