Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Haixing visits Estonia to hold political consultation

2016-10-19 05:15

From October 15 to 16, 2016, Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Haixing visited Estonia, during which he held political consultation between the two Foreign Ministries with Undersecretary for Economic and Development Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Väino Reinart and met with Foreign Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister Rein Tammsaar of Estonia.

Liu Haixing expressed that in recent years, China-Estonia relations have enjoyed smooth development. Both sides have conducted frequent high-level exchanges, yielded fruitful results from economic and trade cooperation and carried out colorful people-to-people and cultural exchanges. China attaches high importance to developing its relationship with Estonia, and is willing to take the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries as an opportunity to continuously enhance political mutual trust, strengthen the docking between the "Belt and Road" initiative and national development strategies of Estonia, deepen practical cooperation in such areas as economy, trade, investment, transportation and logistics, infrastructure, e-commerce, energy and environmental protection, and enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges, so as to jointly push for more outcomes from bilateral relations and the "16+1" cooperation.

The Estonian side expressed that bilateral cooperation in all fields has achieved substantial development since the two countries established diplomatic relations 25 years ago. Estonia regards China as the most important cooperation partner in Asia, and stands ready to further advance bilateral high-level exchanges, reinforce economic and trade cooperation as well as intensify people-to-people and cultural exchanges on the basis of respecting each other's core interests and major concerns. Estonia speaks highly of the "Belt and Road" initiative, actively supports and participates in the "16+1" cooperation and is willing to promote bilateral cooperation in such areas as transportation, logistics, infrastructure construction and e-commerce under the frameworks of above initiatives.

Both sides also exchanged views on international and regional issues of common concern including China-EU relations, the UK referendum on EU membership and the Ukrainian crisis.