REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SURABAYA -- Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini is following up on the Surabaya-Liverpool sister-city cooperation, through a working visit to Liverpool, the United Kingdom by the end of this month. It was signed in 2017.
In general, the cooperation covers the development of creative economy and smart city, port management, and human resource capacity improvement.
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"It will be carried out with the opening of a gallery to market Surabaya's SME products in Liverpool," Rismaharini informed reporters in Surabaya on Wednesday.
Rismaharini will also follow up on a plan of the Liverpool government to provide assistance for equipment for schools with disabled students. Liverpool has St Vincent's School specifically for the blind, while Surabaya also has three such schools.
"They are ready to help provide the facilities, so I will meet with the principal there," she stated.
The first female mayor of Surabaya will also discuss about scholarship for Surabaya citizens to study fashion from the designers in Liverpool.
"Liverpool Deputy Mayor Gary (Millar) has a strong passion for art, so I will try to tell him about the fashion scholarship. Hopefully, we would be able to establish cooperation in that area," Rismaharini noted.
The letter of intent (LoI) for the sister-city cooperation between Surabaya and Liverpool was signed in May 2017 by Surabaya Mayor Rismaharini and her Liverpool counterpart Joe Anderson.
The LoI mechanism is a commitment for technical cooperation between the two cities, which includes smart city cooperation, maritime, and creative economy. The LoI is expected to boost cooperation commitments in the form of a stronger legal basis through a memorandum of understanding in the coming year.
Both mayors agreed that this cooperation held significance, given the various similarities between Surabaya and Liverpool, with each being a port city and an economic center.