Part of Char­lotte Street, from Park Street to In­de­pen­dence Square, is to be of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed as 'Chi­na­town' and arch­ways are to be built by the Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group to sig­ni­fy it.

This was an­nounced by Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny to wel­come a vis­it­ing del­e­ga­tion from Shang­hai.

The ini­tia­tive is one of the on-go­ing projects dis­cussed as part of a planned twin­ning be­tween the city of Port-of-Spain and the city of Shang­hai.

Mar­tinez said the arch­es would be lo­cat­ed at Park and Char­lotte Streets and In­de­pen­dence Square and Char­lotte Street.

“Our twin­ning will cre­ate an ide­al en­vi­ron­ment which will de­vel­op new co­op­er­a­tion tech­niques, ex­change of ex­pe­ri­ences as well as joint re­flec­tions on spe­cif­ic is­sues that will find so­lu­tions and bring im­prove­ments,” he said.

The co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two cities is part of the Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive an­nounced by Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping in 2013.

It is a cre­ative co­op­er­a­tion mod­el that aims to bet­ter deal with the eco­nom­ic and so­cial dif­fi­cul­ties cur­rent­ly be­ing faced world­wide.

At the event, Chi­nese Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, His Ex­cel­len­cy Song Yu­min said “With a fur­ther man­date from the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, now Shang­hai Mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty will pri­or­i­tize its cor­po­ra­tion with Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He ex­pects the two coun­tries to make great strides as the part­ner­ship con­tin­ues to be built with re­newed vig­or.