Recently, Senior Vice President of Sanpower Group Yue Lei was awarded a Sixth Jiangsu Youth Friendship Envoy certificate by the Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government for his outstanding achievements in foreign relations and cultural communication, becoming a civil envoy for friendly foreign exchange in Jiangsu.

Jiangsu Province began to select Jiangsu Youth Friendship Envoys in 2011. This practice was once called “reserving civil strength for tomorrow’s foreign affairs” by Yang Jiechi, former minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So far, 240 people have been named Youth Friendship Envoys in Jiangsu. They are spread across a number of countries in the world and have become a grassroots force in disseminating Jiangsu culture and Chinese culture.

In contrast to previous years, this year’s set of Jiangsu Youth Friendship Envoys for the first time includes public figures and foreigners in Jiangsu alongside overseas students. The list includes Olympic athletes who went to the Rio Olympics, such as Hui Ruoqi and Shen Duo, and Zhang Jun, the successor of Nanjing’s “paper cutting master”.

Yue Lei has proactively taken on the responsibility of promoting Jiangsu and expanding Jiangsu’s civil diplomacy even before becoming a Jiangsu Youth Friendship Envoy. In recent years, while engaged in foreign business exchanges, Yue Lei has taken an active role in charity endeavours. He acts as global ambassador of United for Wildlife (UfW) and has promoted global wildlife conservation with international celebrities such as Prince William and David Beckham.

Yue Lei said that after becoming a Jiangsu Youth Friendship Envoy, he will work harder to become an example to others, carrying out the mission and proactively promoting exchange in economy, trade, culture and charity between Jiangsu and various countries across the world. He said he would contribute to the amplification of Jiangsu’s voice and the telling Jiangsu’s stories in the international community.