On 14th March, Israeli Ambassador Matan and Israeli CG Amir Lati attended the opening ceremony of Israeli Consulate General in Chengdu.
Temporarily located on 12th Floor, No.99 Dongda Street, the Israeli Consulate General in Chengdu once opened on 17th November, 2016, with Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Chongqing as its consulate district. The Israeli Ambassador Matan Vilnai paid a special visit to Chengdu to attend the opening ceremony.
While the direct flight between Beijing and Tel-Aviv will be available by April 2016, the Israeli Government will highly support the establishment of direct flight between Sichuan and Israel.
In the past 4 months, the consulate has received hundreds of visa applications, most of which are tourist visas and business visas. In 2012, the number of Chinese tourists to Israel is only 15,000. But after three years, the number has tripled to 50,000. He expressed the hope that there will be 100,000 tourists travelling to Israel per year during his term.
The number of Chinese students studying in Israel is around 1000 and it is still arising.
Israel has closed many consulates in other areas and regions around the world due to the budget, but meanwhile, it insisted to open a new consulate in Chengdu.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is developing “Young Leaders Program”, which aims at helping young leaders to gain further insight into Israel. The program has allowed 6 young leaders delegations to look into Israel, and 4 delegations are from Sichuan.
Israel is going to send business representatives to Sichuan to promote the bilateral cooperation. Machon Weizmann LeMada, the foremost authority in Israel on science and technology is going to meet with universities in Sichuan, with the hope to share the innovation, ideas and technology with Sichuan.