China and the United Kingdom's partnership in establishing smart cities is anticipated to start working much more effectively following the signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) between China and Future Cities Catapult (FCC), one of the leading urban innovation platforms in the UK.

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With the hope of a successful collaboration, Ivory Wells, FCC's global partnerships manager, said that the tandem will "make it easier for both British and Chinese enterprises to invest in and get involved in the smart city market in their respective country."

The MOU was signed with China Center for Urban Development at China Smart City Innovation Conference on Thursday.

"The UK was the first country in the world to industrialize and de-industrialize, and then move on to the knowledge economy," said Sir Michael Bear, UK's Special Envoy for Sustainable Urbanization to China, citing that UK has gone through a lot of experiences from different sectors and is willing to share it with the People's Republic.

The Sino-UK collaboration began in 2014 when Bristol teamed up with Guangzhou. In 2015, Manchester also cooperated with Wuhan to build a smart city.

The cooperation between these two nations aims to impart the expertise and experiences of UK to China in establishing smart cities, John K Davies of the UK Trade and Investment said.

Meanwhile, China gladly welcomed the new tied relationship.

"One of the significant changes in building new smart city is that the old government-driven development model should be changed into user-oriented and market-driven one," Li Tie, director of China Center for Urban Development, said.

Tagschina, UK, Future Cities Catapult, Smart Cities, memorandum of understanding, Sino-UK partnership