From 15 to 16 October 2019, representatives of the City of Nice met with four delegates from Liuzhou and Haikou within the Innovative City Conference and Exhibition (www.innovative-city.com). Nice Metropole hosted a business promotion event focusing on concrete pilot projects in the areas of smart city, innovation and culture. Chinese city delegates were supported by Ms Wang Qian, cluster manager at the IUC Asia programme. The European Union was represented by Dr. Ronald Hall, Senior Advisor to DG REGIO.

The IUC had an exhibition booth, receiving numbers of visitors of startups/innovation clusters, who were interested in developing activities with China within the IUC project. During the event, the Mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi visited the booth welcoming delegates from China and expressed strong interest to strengthen the cooperation. Further meetings were held with Nice government authorities (including the Vice-Mayor Christian Tordo, the Director of the Tourism Office and the Director of the Nice Carnival). In the cultural area, meetings focused on the possibility of introducing the Nice Carnival event to Haikou in 2020.

Meetings were also held with innovation partners including the CEEI Business Incubator, the French Tech – Nice Startups and the IMREDD (Mediterranean Institute ute of Risk, Environment and Sustainable Development).

Chinese delegates also participated in two further business events: the eHealth World Conference (www.e-healthworld.com) and the Day One Conference (www.dayone-event.com), a market place for global leaders to discuss challenges in a world shaped by digital technology.