US, Russian Sister Cities To Hold Conference In Lipetsk In October - Organization Chair

Umer Jamshaid Published July 15, 2019 | 11:22 PM

Russian and US sister cities are planning to conduct bilateral conference on cooperation on October 11 in the Russian city of Lipetsk, Chairman Emeritus of the US-based Sister Cities International (SCI) Bill Boerum told Sputnik on Monday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2019) Russian and US sister cities are planning to conduct bilateral conference on cooperation on October 11 in the Russian city of Lipetsk, Chairman Emeritus of the US-based Sister Cities International (SCI) Bill Boerum told Sputnik on Monday.

"We have a conference scheduled in the Russian city of Lipetsk with the Union of the Russian Cities (URC) on October 11, 2019," Boerum said.

He noted that this will be a one-day conference sponsored by the SCI and the URC.

Last November, Boerum, who serves as Sister Cities International's country representative for Russia, told Sputnik that the last similar conference was organized more than two decades ago.

This week, a group of URC representatives is heading to Houston to participate at Sister Cities national conference, Boerum said. While the forum has no Russian agenda this time, delegation from URC will meet with US colleagues and encourage them to come to the conference in Russia in October, he added.

"They and we will have a table, so the people who are interested can come up and get information about the conference," he said.

Maintaining contacts between Russian and US municipalities is very important, the Honorable SCI chairman said.

"We see the conference in Lipetsk as significant because there will be many people from the US at that forum. We hope that they will also visit their Russian sister cities," he said, encouraging American colleagues to do more exchanges with Russian counterparts.

Sister Cities International was established in the United States about 60 years ago. The global organization has more established more than 2,000 partnerships between cities in 146 countries. About 60 Russian and 70 US cities have sister relations.