On September 7-9, Chinese Vice Minister Gao Yan led the economic and trade delegation of the Chinese government to visit Maldives.
During her visit, Gao Yan visited the President of Maldives Abdulla Yameen at appointment and conveyed the greetings from President Xi Jinping, and introduced the fruitful achievements gained by China-Maldives economic and trade cooperation in recent years. They exchanged views on jointly promoting the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” on implementing the achievements gained by the mutual visits of the leaders of the two countries, and on deeply bolstering China-Maldives reciprocal cooperation.
Abdulla Yameen highly appraised Maldives and China for their mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and concern, and their effective and mutually reciprocal cooperation. Maldives will stick to one-China policy, actively participate in the initiation of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” continuously enrich the connotation of Maldives-China relations of both friendship and cooperation partners, promote the level of practical cooperation, and seek common development together with China.
After that, Vice Minister Gao presided over the 2nd meeting of China-Maldives Joint Committee of Economy and Trade together with the Maldives Minister of Economic Development Mohammed Saeed. The two parties exchanged views in depth and reached extensive consensus on expanding bilateral trade and investment, on launching China-Maldives FTA negotiation, and on strengthening infrastructure construction and promoting human resources cooperation.
Gao said that, since China and Maldives established the diplomatic relations, the two parties always respect, trust and support each other, setting a good example for the friendly relation between large countries and small countries. Since 2014, President Xi Jinping has visited Maldives successfully, and President Abdulla Yameen has visited China twice, promoting China-Maldives relation to a new development stage. Since the 1st meeting of Economic and Trade Joint Committee in December, 2014, China-Maldives economic and trade relation has gained active progress. In the first half year of 2014, China-Maldives bilateral trade volume was over US$ 73 million, up 62.1 year on year. The cooperation in project contracting and tourism has been developing smoothly, and China is still the largest source of tourist of Maldives. China is willing to take the Economic and Trade Joint Committee as the platform, implement the economic and trade consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, expand the reciprocal cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure and tourism, promote the level of bilateral economic and trade relation, and benefit the people of the two countries.
Mohammed Saeed said that Maldives attaches great importance to the economic and trade relation with China. Maldives is willing, together with China, to actively implement the economic and trade consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, take part in the construction of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” and promote the cooperation in trade, investment and infrastructure. Maldives looks forward to the completion of the Maldives-China FTA and further promoting the level of bilateral economic and trade cooperation. Maldives thanks China for the long-term selfless help, and hopes that China would support the projects such as the construction of “China-Maldives Friendship Bridge,” and the construction of Male International Airport. Maldives also hopes that China will strengthen the two countries cooperation in the training of human resources.
After the meeting, Gao Yan and Mohammed Saeed signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Launching the Negotiation of China-Maldives FTA During the visit, Vice Minister Gao Yan also attended the exhibition of the designing plans of “China-Maldives Friendship Bridge” together with President Abdulla Yameen, Vice President Ahmed Adeeb and several Ministers of Maldives. The China-Maldives Friendship Bridge is a symbolic project of the economic and trade cooperation decided by President Xi Jinping and President Abdulla Yameen during Xi’s visit to Maldives in 2014.
