Governor Linda Lingle and University of Hawaii-Hilo Chancellor Rose Tseng attended a banquet at the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, sponsored by the China Diplomatic Friendship Association and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The banquet included special guest Lu Yong Xiang, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s National Congress and head of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences who had visited Mauna Kea as part of China's intention to become a collaborative partner with the TMT. The governor gave a presentation on the two competing site locations, Mauna Kea and Cerro Armazones, Chile. Speaking at a Chinese Academy of Science conference in 1995, Lu Yong Xiang stated that by 2010, the academy would become one of the leading international scientific institutions, with new research results in such fields as Moon exploration, evolution of the universe and of life, space micro-gravity, particle physics, and astrophysics. In 2010, a consortium of Indian Astronomy Research Institutes (IIA, IUCAA and ARIES) joined TMT as an observer, subject to approval of funding from the Indian government. Two years later, India and China became partners with representatives on the TMT board. Both countries agreed to share the telescope construction costs, expected to top $1 billion. India became a full member of the TMT consortium in 2014. In 2019 the India-based company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) were awarded the contract to build the segment support assembly (SSA), which “are complex optomechanical sub-assemblies on which each hexagonal mirror of the 30-metre primary mirror, the heart of the telescope, is mounted”. The IndiaTMT Optics Fabricating Facility (ITOFF) will be constructed at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics campus in the city of Hosakote, near Bengaluru. India will supply 80 of the 492 mirror segments for the TMT. A.N. Ramaprakash, the associate programme director of India-TMT, stated; "All sensors, actuators and SSAs for the whole telescope are being developed and manufactured in India, which will be put together in building the heart of TMT", also adding; "Since it is for the first time that India is involved in such a technically demanding astronomy project, it is also an opportunity to put to test the abilities of Indian scientists and industries, alike." The continued financial commitment from the Canadian government had been in doubt due to economic pressures. In April 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would commit $243.5 million over a period of