About external relationships
The Council works through a series of strategic external relationships - both nationally and internationally - to support Manchester's ability to deliver economic growth.
Manchester City Council is a member of Core Cities, a group of the local authorities of the eight major English regional cities (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield). The Core Cities work together to promote the role of cities as drivers of national economic growth, and to ensure that cities have the tools they need to deliver on their full economic potential.
The City Council is also a member of Eurocities, which is a network of over 130 of the largest cities in Europe. Member cities work together to influence the agenda of the EU in favour of cities across a number of policy areas. The network also provides a platform to exchange expertise and to facilitate transnational project partnerships. The City Council has been a member of Eurocities since 1992 and has played a leading role for several years, which included holding the Presidency of Eurocities in 2005/6.
Manchester also has working relationships with a number of international cities. Networking with leading global cities allows Manchester to exchange ideas and experience, informing our future thinking on delivering sustainable economic growth and running efficient local services. It also enables us to promote the city internationally as a place to live, invest, visit and study.
The City Council has longstanding formal sister city or friendship arrangements in place with some cities. The most significant relationships are:
- St Petersburg (Russia) St Petersburg is Russia's second largest city with around 4.6 million residents. This is Manchester's oldest formal link and dates back to a friendship agreement signed in 1962. There has been a strong cultural focus to the link and during 2012 a number of cultural activities took place to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the relationship.
- Wuhan (China) Wuhan is a city of around 9 million residents, situated in on the Yangtze River in the Hubei province of central China. Manchester has had a sister city link with Wuhan since 1986. The relationship is based in particular on strong economic ties, which provide opportunities for trade and investment between the UK and China.
- Chemnitz (Germany) Chemnitz is a city of 250,000 residents located in the Saxony region of Germany, and has a similar industrial heritage to Manchester. This sister city link began in 1983 and focuses on social and community links, and in particular young people.
- In addition to these relationships Manchester also has friendship agreements with Los Angeles (USA), Faisalabad (Pakistan), Córdoba (Spain), Rehovot (Israel) and Bilwi (Nicaragua).