The Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. on Wednesday held a celebration marking the 40th anniversary of sister city relationships between Chinese and U.S. cities.

中国驻华盛顿大使馆周三举行中美友好城市合作40周年庆典。

"Sister cities relationship is a major channel for people-to-people exchanges and sub-national cooperation. It is an important driving force for our relations," Minister Xu Xueyuan of the embassy told the event.

"Sister cities cooperation between China and the U.S. has almost developed in tandem with the overall bilateral ties," Xu said.

"Over the past four decades, the number of sister provinces/states and sister cities between us has grown into 277 pairs. Following the principles of friendship, mutual benefit and practical results, the two sides have made great achievement in their trade and economic cooperation as well as people-to-people ties, with the purpose of common development and shared prosperity," Xu said.

Officials of U.S. states, cities, and towns that have sister city ties with their Chinese counterparts joined the celebration, co-hosted by both the Chinese Embassy and Sister Cities International (SCI), a non-profit organization that promotes local-level ties between the United States and other countries.