Recently, the Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government has approved Tianning District and Jintan District’s applications for establishing friendship-city relationships respectively with Cupertino in California, USA and Shepparton in northern Victoria, Australia.

Cupertino is a U.S. city in Santa Clara County, California. Forbes ranked it as one of the most educated small towns, with local public schools ranking highly in the country. Cupertino is one of many cities that claim to be the "heart" of Silicon Valley, as many semi-conductor and computer companies were founded there and in the surrounding areas. It is known as the home of the Apple Inc. corporate headquarters.

Shepparton is a city located on the floodplain of the Goulburn River in northern Victoria, Australia, approximately 181 kilometres north-northeast of Melbourne. It began as a sheep station and river crossing in the mid-19th century, before undergoing a major transformation as a railway town. Today it is an agricultural and manufacturing centre, and the centre of the Goulburn Valley irrigation system, one of the largest centres of irrigation in Australia.

After official establishment of international friendship cities, cooperation and exchanges will be extended in economy, trade, science and technology, agriculture, culture, education, health care, etc.