West businessmen Kam Wong and David Parkinson have joined an elite organisation in Bristol’s Chinese sister city Guangzhou that forges relationships with other countries.
The pair from Portishead-based DPS Environmental Technologies, which works in the oil, gas and environmental sectors, were 
elected as overseas council members of the Guangzhou People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.
DPS managing director Kam Wong and David Parkinson, the specialist engineering firm’s vice-chairman, were among 16 delegates to join the group.
Around 150 people attended a special ceremony in Guangzhou at which the new members were welcomed on to the council and Guangzhou’s vice mayor Cao Jianliao was elected as the association’s president. He told the meeting of plans to develop the association to play an important part in promoting co-operation around the world.
Pictured: Kam Wong, above, and David Parkinson, below, greeted to the Guangzhou People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries by Guangzhou vice mayor Cao Jianliao
In a message to the association, Chinese president Xi Jinping said it should play a leading role in promoting people-to-people diplomacy as well as in public diplomacy and promoting co-operation between local governments in China and the rest of the world.
It was the association’s sixth council and group member meeting.
Kam Wong was co-founder of the Bristol China Partnership, which developed the sister-city relationship with Guangzhou and is now building business links between China and the West of England, including staging trade missions.
