Chinese President Xi Jinping announced today that he will import more than 170 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods from Central and Eastern European countries over the next five years as he hosted the China-CEE Leaders Summit. He also expressed his willingness to work with CEE countries in solidarity and cooperation to deal with the Epidemic.
According to Politico, Beijing has been trying to convince the three Baltic states and Poland to send high-level representatives to the summit for the past few days. Neither the presidents and prime ministers of Lithuania and Estonia will attend, with plans for ministerial-level officials to participate instead. Lithuania has not indicated that it will participate in the videoconference. Romania, for its part, is hesitant.
Xinhua News Agency and CCTV News reported that Xi Jinping hosted the China-CEE Leaders Summit in Beijing on September by video message, which he delivered in a keynote speech entitled “Gathering Strength, Building on the Past, Working Together for a New Chapter of Cooperation”.
A total of 16 CEE heads of state, heads of government and high-level representatives reportedly attended the summit, but Chinese official media did not specify which heads of state were not present. It was previously rumored that some countries in this “17+1 cooperation” mechanism, which China led in 2012, are now pulling the wool over China’s eyes, indicating that the heads of state will not attend.
Xi Jinping reportedly said that China-CEE cooperation has been going on for nine years. It insists on mutual respect, cooperation without political conditions, equality for all countries of all sizes, and common construction and sharing. With the belief that “17+1 is greater than 18”, a three-dimensional cooperation structure covering more than 20 fields has been established with the leaders’ meeting mechanism as the leader, involving every country.
He said that compared to nine years ago, China’s trade with CEE countries has increased by nearly 85 percent, with Chinese imports increasing by 22 percent more than exports and the number of two-way tourism exchanges increasing nearly four times.
Xi also said that last year, China-EU relations bucked the epidemic and the two sides completed the China-EU investment agreement negotiations on schedule, signed the China-EU geographical indications agreement, built China-EU green cooperation and digital partnership, firmly upheld multilateralism and jointly tackled global challenges. China-CEE cooperation is an important part of China-EU relations, and the positive development of China-EU relations also brings new opportunities for China-CEE cooperation.
Xi then threw light on the future development of the “17+1” cooperation.
He said that China is willing to cooperate with CEE countries to tackle the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic and to cooperate with CEE countries on vaccines. At present, Serbia has acquired one million doses of vaccines from Chinese companies, and Hungary is cooperating with Chinese vaccine companies. “If other countries in Central and Eastern Europe have a demand for vaccine cooperation, China is willing to actively consider it.”
Xi also said that they should work together to build the “Belt and Road” with high quality, speed up the construction of major projects such as the Hungarian-Serbian railroad, continue to support the development of China-European trains and fully tap the potential for cooperation.
Xi also said that China plans to import more than 170 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods from CEE countries in the next five years, and is willing to actively use platforms such as the China International Import Expo and the China-CEE Expo to expand imports from CEE countries, and through the establishment of the China-CEE sanitary and phytosanitary working group mechanism He said: “We need to deepen our cooperation with China and CEE countries, and to improve the quality of our products.
He said, “We will deepen agricultural cooperation and strive to double China’s agricultural imports from CEE countries in the next five years and increase the agricultural trade volume between the two sides by 50 percent.”
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