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The World Taekwondo Federation opens its first branch in Wuxi Taihu New City, East China's Jiangsu province, on July 26. [Photo/wxrb.com] |
The World Taekwondo Federation opened its first branch in Wuxi Taihu New City, East China's Jiangsu province, on July 26. It is the WTF's first agency in China.
It is also the first time an international sport organization under the International Olympic Committee has set up a global business operations center in China.
Initiated by the WTF and local government, the branch is another milestone in the cooperation between the two sides following the World Taekwondo Grand Slam Champions Series, which was held last year in Wuxi Taihu New City, now one of the event’s permanent host venues.
A regional headquarters for WTF's administrative affairs and a WTF university will be settled in the center, which will be devoted to promoting the sport globally.
"The launch of the center will be of great significance to the sport," said WTF Chairman Zhao Zhengyuan, adding that the city will integrate resources of training, R&D, media, and innovation for the WTF.
At present, the newly opened WTF Wuxi Center is the only Chinese organization to have established strategic cooperation with the Olympic channel. The channel will offer global copyright distribution for the center in the future.
In addition, the center will launch a world-class university based on Taekwondo, hoping to nurture more talents in the sport.
Taihu New City has hosted a group of Taekwondo events, such as the World Taekwondo World Cup Team Championship and the National Taekwondo Championship. It plans to develop itself into a global Taekwondo center and a national sport and health demonstration park featuring high-end sport events, clusters of international and domestic organizations and enterprises, top-level competitions, and health data and Taekwondo training.
There are about 70 million Taekwondo fans in the world and the industry has a market value of 300 billion yuan ($44.25 billion).
The WTF is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and has a liaison office in Lausanne, Switzerland.
