On Mar. 12, 2014, a cooperation framework agreement signing ceremony was held in Friendship Hotel in Addis Ababa, the Capital of Ethiopia, jointly by Hydrochina Huadong and Ethiopian Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise(WWDSE).

    The participants of the Ethiopian side were Hydropower Department Chief of the Ethiopian Ministry of Water & Energy and representatives from Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, and WWDSE, etc.. And among the participants of the Chinese side were Qin Jian, the Charge d’Affairesof Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, Qian Zhaogang, counsellor from the Economic and Commercial Counsellor, Zhang Chunsheng, President of Hydrochina Huadong, and Wang Yantao, deputy general manager of HYDROCHINAINTERNATIONAL, etc.. Ethiopian Television (ETV) gave a full report with the signing ceremonyand broadcast in the evening news. In the presence of all guests, President Zhang Chunsheng from Hydrochina Huadong and President Dr. Meberate from WWDSE signed the cooperation framework agreement on behalf of the two sides. After the signing ceremony, President Zhang also accepted the exclusive interview with ETV.

    WWDSE is a company specializing in design and supervision of water conservancy and irrigation projects, etc. directly under the Ethiopian Ministry of Water & Energy. It is currently the largest waterconservancy design and consulting enterprise in Ethiopia.

    Through cooperating with Hydrochina Huadong, WWDSE hopes to upgrade their technical and management capability, expand market and business scope, achieve the vision of “international consulting firm”, and meet the expectations of promoting the technical level from the Ethiopian government and society. As for Hydrochina Huadong, the cooperation shall help it go deep into the investigation and design markets in Ethiopia and its neighboring African countries and further improve its design and consultation service ability and level in international projects.

    Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia attached great importance to the cooperation of the two companies and believed that this was a new attempt of friendly cooperation between China and Ethiopia, and the win-win cooperation would gradually change the monopoly of western design consultancy firms in Ethiopian planning and design consultancy, have important significance in the promotion and application of China’s technical standards and specifications in Ethiopia as well as other African countries, and form a platform and technical atmosphere to facilitate participation of Chinese construction and equipment manufacturing enterprises in competing African markets.