The 2021 Suzhou Honorary Citizen & Friend of Suzhou Awarding Ceremony was held by Suzhou Municipal People’s Government on 28th September. John Robert Wilson, Marco Cairoli, John Michael Kosterlitz, Li Changming, Biwang Jack Jiang and Zheng Yonggang were named Suzhou Honorary Citizen this year, and received certificates and badges from Mr. Xu Kunlin, the Party Secretary of CPC Suzhou Municipal Committee, at the ceremony. Honorees of Friend of Suzhou·Honor and Friend of Suzhou·Merit also received awards.
This year, in order to further encourage talents to devote themselves to the modernization and high quality development of Suzhou, the awarding system was optimized with an enlarged pool of candidates for honorary citizens, including foreigners, overseas Chinese, compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and other bright minds from outside Suzhou. Meanwhile, the award Friend of Suzhou·Merit was introduced to the system this March and the ceremony will be held once a year from now on instead of on a biennial basis, so that people who have made contributions to the city can be awarded timely and their sense of belonging to this place can be enhanced.
“Suzhou has a very good business environment and open-up policy. As a new Suzhou citizen, I am willing to be an ‘ambassador’ to promote Suzhou to the outside world, attracting more people to see Suzhou and work and live in this city. ” said Marco Cairoli in his speech as the representative of Suzhou honorary citizens.
So far, a total of 115 people have been named Suzhou Honorary Citizen since 1995, and 135 have been named Friend of Suzhou since 2004 for their contributions to the city.
