As driverless trucks carried containers along preset routes and gantry cranes worked overhead at Ningbo-Zhoushan Port's Meishan terminal, Romulus Agbedjekou was thinking of a harbor thousands of kilometers away in Benin.

"This is one of the most modern ports in the world," said Agbedjekou, special representative of the mayor of Cotonou and chair of the city's economic affairs commission. Impressed by the automated equipment at the East China Sea port in Zhejiang Province, he said he hopes to replicate some of the practices at his country's Autonomous Port of Cotonou.

His interest reflects a practical focus of the 2026 Global Mayors Dialogue, which brought mayors and representatives from 20 cities in 15 countries to Ningbo in Zhejiang from Nov. 2 to 5. They came with different priorities, from making ports more efficient to helping smaller companies use new technology.

Fourteen cooperation projects were signed during the gathering, covering trade, technology, education, tourism and exchanges between local governments.

Ahmed Wazeery, secretary-general of Suez Governorate, Egypt, talked about his nation's Suez Canal Economic Zone, with six ports and four industrial areas, and the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, where investment has exceeded 6.7 billion U.S. dollars.

Wazeery saw opportunities to expand cooperation with Ningbo beyond industry and manufacturing, particularly in education, cultural industries and high-tech industrial parks.

In a different setting on Wednesday, an embodied AI robot holding a pen drew a crowd at a smart factory operated by PIA Automation. The machine wrote steadily on paper as visiting officials leaned in to watch or raised their phones to record it.

Enrico Ricci, representing the mayor of Florence, Italy, was impressed by the robot's movements and ability to interact. Florence, he said, is also looking for ways to connect advanced digital technologies with small businesses and startups, and hopes to exchange more ideas with Ningbo.

Ningbo already has extensive international business links. Mayor Shen Mingquan said the eastern Chinese city trades with more than 220 countries and regions. More than 5,000 Ningbo-based enterprises have invested overseas, while nearly 10,000 foreign-invested firms operate in the city.

New Zealand's Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown stressed the importance of personal connections in trade. "Trade today is becoming more city to city, and it's people to people connections which contribute to this trade," he said.

He recalled exchanges between Ningbo and the city of Waitakere, now part of Auckland, that predated their 1998 sister-city agreement. Waitakere's then-mayor, Bob Harvey, had made several visits to Ningbo, helping promote exchanges in education and sports.

Brown said Auckland is also exploring ways to use technological innovation to drive business growth and hopes to learn from its Chinese partners.

Among the new arrangements announced in Ningbo were friendly exchange ties between the city's Yinzhou District and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray in France, and between Yuyao City (under the administration of Ningbo) and Errachidia in Morocco.

Delegates also issued the Ningbo Consensus on Collaborative Development, calling for open trade, industrial cooperation and closer people-to-people exchanges.

For Joachim Moyse, mayor of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, such cooperation ultimately comes down to the relationships cities build with one another. He described his task as building bridges between people.