Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, His Excellency Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, and to the rest of the Chinese Delegation, good morning.
On behalf of the Government of the Philippines, I would like to welcome you all to our first bilateral meeting in Manila.
Given the significant strides we have made since our Governments’ last meeting in March, today is an opportune time for us to update each other on the progress of our developments and financing cooperation initiatives.
We welcome this high-level engagement, as we underscore the importance of assessing where we stand, while providing added impetus in our efforts to achieve our objectives and deliverables.
Apart from the updates, we also look forward to exchanging views with you on other areas of mutual interest, including the Belt and Road Initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
We know that we will have a productive and meaningful dialogue like the last time we had in Beijing. Later this morning, we will also witness the signing ceremony of six agreements and documents between our governments.
Thank you and may we now invite Vice Premier Hu to deliver his opening remarks.
I am very delighted to meet again with you, the Secretary and the Cabinet economic team. Thank you very much for your warm hospitality and considerable arrangements as well as your warm remarks just now.
In November last year, President Xi paid a state visit to the Philippines, during which he elevated the relations between China and the Philippines through a comprehensive strategic partnership. This year, President Duterte visited China twice. The two Presidents reached a new consensus on how to deepen the pragmatic cooperation between our two countries.
Thanks to the concerted efforts of both sides, in the recent years, we have seen rapid developments in the economic cooperation between China and the Philippines.
According to Chinese statistics, in 2018, our bilateral trade registered a total of 55 billion US dollars. In the first three quarters of this year, our trade reached 44 billion US dollars, up by 6.1 percent year-on-year.
It is fair to say that against the backdrop of a slowdown in the growth of the global economy, such an achievement is not easy to gain.
In terms of investments between the two sides and on cumulative terms, Chinese investments in the Philippines was high at 1.29 billion US dollars. There’s also an increase in the number of tourists within these two countries, and this year, it is likely to hit or exceed 1.5 million in terms of Chinese tourists here in the Philippines.
So all these have fully demonstrated the enormous potential between us and our cooperation.
So I’d be happy to work together with you, Mr. Secretary, to implement the important consensus of our two heads of state and to promote the better development of our cooperation.
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