A few days ago, Mr. Steve Adler, Mayor of Austin, the US, which signed an MoU on friendly and cooperative ties with Chengdu in July 2019, paid a visit to the city and received an interview with the National Business Daily (NBD), a Chinese newspaper headquartered in the city.

 

 

Austin and Chengdu are both located in the southwest of their respective countries. Both cities share lots of common grounds in many fields and are trying to strengthen their mutual ties.

 

Austin, the capital city of the state of Texas, which had long been associated with such words as cowboy, wildness and barren, now impresses the world as a center for innovation and high technology.

 

According to Mr. Adler, Austin is one of the most innovative cities in the US. In recent years, its economy has kept an annual growth of more than 5 percent, far higher than those of many other American cities.

 

Austin is now home to a number of high-tech companies, including Dell, 3M, Apple, Cisco, Texas Instruments, eBay, Facebook, Google, HP, Intel and Oracle, as well as numerous fast-growing startups. It is nicknamed "Silicon Hills" for it is situated in a hilly area.

 

Like Austin in America, Chengdu is a hub for technology and innovation in China.

 

Such tech giants as Samsung, Foxconn, Cisco, Intel and Texas Instruments have settled in Chengdu, and plenty of innovation and entrepreneurship programs have launched here.

 

In 2018, the output value of the city's hi-tech industries exceeded RMB1 trillion.