Ambassador Zou said that Sparti, together with Athens, Ancient Olympia, and Marathon, are the most famous ancient cities of Greece, which enjoy long history, splendid culture, rich natural resources and unique advantage in agriculture, tourism, culture and sports. This year marks the year of China-Greece cultural exchanges and cultural industry cooperation. He hoped that the city of Sparti would strengthen ties with Chinese provinces and cities to increase mutual understanding and trust, expand mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas, and become a bridge for bilateral exchanges and the integration of Eastern and Western civilizations.

Mr. Valiotis said that the COSCO Piraeus project has made important headway recently, which has increased the confidence of the international community to invest in Greece. Sparta is exploring the possibility of entering into twin cities with the municipality of Chongqing. It welcomes more Chinese businesses to invest in Greece, and more Chinese Marathon-enthusiasts to participate in Ultramarathon with Sparti as the finishing point. It hopes to further expand exchanges and cooperation with its Chinese counterparts in the areas of trade, tourism, and culture to bring benefit to the two peoples.

During the visit, Ambassador Zou and his wife also visited a Chinese shop accompanied by Mr. Valiotis and held cordial conversation with Chinese employees of the shop. Sparti has around 20 Chinese diaspora, most of whom came from Zhejiang Province, whose main line of business is keeping garment shops and grocery stores. Ambassador Zou encouraged them to strengthen communication with local government, work hard to integrate into mainstream society, and make more contribution to enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. The Chinese Embassy will work to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of overseas Chinese. The diaspora community thanked the ambassador for visiting them and promised to keep close contact with the Chinese Embassy and to better introduce China to the local communities.

Sparti is located at the Southeast of the Peloponnese Peninsular, with a population of around 20000. The local economy pillars on agriculture and tourism, with olive, orange, lemon and mulberry tree being the main crops.