On June, 24, 1973, Tianjin and Kobe became sister cities under the unreserved care of PRC's first premier Zhou Enlai.They were China's first pair twin cities. Kobe is the sixth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of y¨go Prefecture and a prominent port city in Japan with a population of 1,533,852(2008-11-1), within the area of 552.80 km2. It is said that the name of Kobe comes from "Kanbe,¡± the ancient people who belonged to shrines and served for rituals as well as maintaining them on taxes gained through a system called "So, Yo and Cho¡±. Kobe is both an important port and manufacturing center within the Hanshin Industrial Region. It is the busiest container port in the region, surpassing even Osaka, and the fourth busiest in Japan. The city's total real GDP amounts to thirty-four percent of the GDP for Hy¨go Prefecture and approximately eight percent for the whole Kansai region. The value of manufactured goods produced and exported from Kobe could be summarized into small appliances, food products, transportation equipment, and communication equipment, the value of which making up over fifty percent of Kobe's manufactured goods. In 2008, the city's total budget amounts to 1,838.2 billion yen, of which its business account takes up for 378.2 billion yen. Kobe City has developed in step in line with the Port of Kobe, Japan¡¯s representative international trading port, since the opening of the port in 1868. The city also serves as a connection point of the wide-area arterial traffic network such as Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway, Sanyo Expressway and Shinkansen Bullet Train lines. In February 2006, it opened an airport, "Kobe Airport Marine Air¡± as a new urban infrastructure facility playing vital role in business and tourism. Thus, the urban development is being geared up to make the city full of further vitality and attractions as a hub of comprehensive traffic functions, making the most of these "ports¡± of sea, air and land. Kobe's overseas office in Tianjin is named Kobe Trade Information Office, Tianjin . This offices handles not only cultural exchanges with sister cities, friendship cities and other partners but the promotion of economic exchanges for inviting corporations, etc. |
