Chicago Reaffirms Sister City Partnership with Mexico City

Daley Initiates Cooperation Agreement with Three New Cities

Mayor Richard M. Daley joined Mayor Marcelo Ebrard today in signing a reaffirmation of the 1991 Chicago, Mexico City Sister Cities agreement.

“This signing reaffirms our commitment to do even more. To reach across borders and create even stronger partnerships that will help our residents and our economy,” said Mayor Daley at a reception sponsored by the Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum.

“There are so many other opportunities to exchange ideas with each other in areas like education. I know that Mayor Ebrard will be visiting our City Collegs, and this is what the Sister Cities program is about – learning from each other, ” added Daley.

On March 10th, Mayor Daley proclaimed 2010 to be the Year of Mexico in Chicago.

“Making a business-to-business connections between Mexico and Chicago can support business growth and create more jobs. This is extremely important because the economic recession is no a local problem but a global problem. We need to rely on our Sister Cities to help businesses grow,” said Mayor Daley.

Chicago boasts the second largest concentration of Mexicans in the United States.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Chicago Sister City International. Chicago is considered the most active Sister City in the worldwith 28 relationshops established in almost every region of the world.

At the reception, Mayor Daley continued Chicago’s global outreach by initiating three new city-to-city cooperation agreements with Glasgow, Scotland; Florence, Italy; and Quebec City, Canada.

“These agreements represent the beginning of what I hope to be a long and meaningful relationship between our cities,” added Daley.

The cooperation agreement is a mayor-to-mayor promise to work together on a variety of important social topics related to education, culture and business.

Glasgow City Lord Provost Bob Winter; Florence City Mayor Matteo Renzi; and Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume; were present for the ceremony.

More than 100 mayors, dignitaries and governemt officials from around the world gathered in Chicago for the sixth annual Richard J. Daley Global Cities Forum.

The forum was organized by the Chicago Sister Cities International and the University of Illinois at Chicago, in conjunction with the World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).