Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said here Wednesday that his visits to seven African and Asian countries reached the goal of promoting mutual trust, expanding cooperation, deepening
understanding and developing friendship.
In the past nine days, Yang had visited Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Maldives. The visits were his first in the New Year.
To visit African states at the beginning of the year is a tradition for Chinese foreign ministers, Yang told Chinese reporters. Such a practice shows that China attaches great importance to strengthening friendly cooperation with African states, he said.
Yang said that during the tour, he met or held talks with leaders of the states, made candid and in-depth exchanges of views with them on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of common concern, and reached broad consensus.
"Through the visits, I deeply felt that the China-Africa relationship is at a new stage of accelerated development and is facing unprecedented opportunities," Yang said.
The minister said the Sharm el-Sheikh Action Plan adopted last November at the fourth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation comprehensively defined China-Africa cooperation in all fields for the 2010-2012 period.
Yang said he strengthened coordination with governments of those African states on implementing the agreements reached at the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting. He said China would make joint efforts with African friends to push for further development of China-Africa cooperation in order to bring tangible benefits to the Chinese and African peoples.
On China's relations with Arab states, Yang said he is looking forward to meeting with foreign ministers of Arab states and chief of the Arab League at the fourth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum slated for June in China.
China and Arab states have common aspirations to learn from each other, cope with challenges and create a win-win situation, said Yang. China is willing to work with Arab states to step up communication and coordination so as to push forward China-Arab cooperation in various fields and build a new partnership for peace and sustainable development, he said.
The minister said China will continue to support African and Arab states in dealing with the international financial crisis, and will continue to call on the international community to pay due attention to the severe difficulties and crises in developing countries, including African and Arab states.
Yang said he also talked about climate change issues with officials of the visited states. He said China is willing to closely cooperate with these countries to push international climate change negotiations toward the right direction.