On June 20, Ms. Mercedes Delgado Fernández, Rector of the Higher School of Cadres of State and Government (ESCEG), paid an official visit to Shanghai Administration Institute with a delegation of 10 members, who were receiving training in SAI. Prof. Wang Guoping, Executive Vice-President of SAI, hosted the welcome meeting, accompanied by Vice-President Mr. Guo Qingsong.
    Wang introduced the international collaboration of Shanghai Administration Institute by generalizing its two features. One is that the partners were well selected. Wang emphasized that SAI had been maintaining relatively stable cooperation partnership with more than 30 well-known universities and training institutes all over the world, such as Harvard University, University of Oxford, and the Italian National School of Administration (SNA). By cooperating and sharing resources with them, SAI is now running many programs extensively in business visit, public servants training, scientific research, visiting scholars, bilateral and international academic conferences, and postgraduates exchange, which greatly improves SAI’s comprehensive strength. The other feature is the partnership with wide coverage. Wang was proud that SAI’s partnership covered the five continents all over the world. This was the first time for SAI to establish a cooperative partnership with Cuban training institutions of public servants, and it marked great significance to SAI. Since there are now only five socialist countries including China in the world, SAI has maintained partnership with 2 of them: Vietnam and Cuba. Wang also introduced the training programs for entrepreneurs and the case of India’s stated-owned enterprises managers in No. 5 branch institute of SAI. He encouraged ESCEG to send more training delegations of state-owned enterprise cadres to SAI to receive the tailored programs specially designed for them.
    Ms. Mercedes Delgado Fernández said that it was the first time for her to visit Shanghai. She was greatly impressed by the teaching facilities and training programs of SAI. By making best use of the teaching resources globally, SAI has become more and more open. She expressed that ESCEG would carry out extensive cooperative programs with SAI, especially in the fields of public administration and economic management.
    SAI and ESCEG signed MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) after the meeting, agreeing that the two parties shall launch cooperation in teaching, training and research. Ms. Lisbet Quesada Luna, Consul General of Consulate General of Cuba in Shanghai, witnessed all the process.
    It was reported that China Academy of Governance (CAG) has also the partnership with ESCEG, and this is the first time for ESCEG to sing MOU with a local administration institute in China.