On May 11th, 2018, at the invitation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Prof. JIANG Zehui, Director General of ICBR and Co-Chair of INBAR Board of Trustees, led a delegation to pay visits to José Graziano da Silva, Director General of FAO, and Paul Winters, Associate Vice-President of IFAD, in Rome.

 

During the two meetings, Prof. Jiang gave an overview of ICBR, introduced INBAR’s key work, and expressed the hope that FAO and IFAD will further deepen their strategic cooperation with INBAR and jointly promote global South-South cooperation in bamboo and rattan. Prof. Jiang remarked that Chinese President XI Jinping is very concerned about the development of bamboo and rattan industries and said in a congratulatory message to INBAR on its 20th anniversary in 2017 that the Chinese government will continue to support the development of INBAR.

 

 Silva and Winters expressed their willingness to continue strengthening cooperation with INBAR and working with the Chinese government to promote the fast development of eco-friendly bamboo and rattan industries in the world, and to strongly support the Global Bamboo and Rattan Congress sponsored by China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) and INBAR to be hosted in Beijing in June this year.