Li Keqiang Attends the Opening Ceremony of the Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries

On April 10, 2022, Premier Li Keqiang attended and addressed the opening ceremony of the Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Forum Macao) via video link.

Li Keqiang said, the member countries of the Forum Macao are good friends and good partners, with pragmatic cooperation in various fields being constantly deepened. The relevant measures announced by China at the fifth Ministerial Conference in 2016 to promote cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries have been fully implemented. The trade volume between China and Portuguese-speaking countries has exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars for five consecutive years and reached 200 billion U.S. dollars last year, fully demonstrating the resilience and potential of cooperation.

Li Keqiang pointed out, as the current international and regional situation is turbulent, the COVID-19 pandemic is still dragging on across the world, and uncertain and unstable factors in the world economy are significantly increasing, all countries are in the same boat sharing weal and woe. China puts forward the following proposals:

First, maintain peace and stability to promote development and prosperity. Peace and stability serve the interests of all countries, while wars, chaos, and unrest among people will have negative impacts on all parties. China has always been a defender of world peace and is ready to work with the international community, including Portuguese-speaking countries, to continue to play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and promoting common development and prosperity for all countries.

Second, strengthen solidarity and coordination to defeat the pandemic at an early date. China is ready to continue to strengthen cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries in the fields of vaccines, medicines and health, and set up a China-Portuguese-speaking countries communication center on pandemic prevention in Macao to jointly improve the global health governance system.

Third, stick to openness and cooperation to promote economic recovery. China has always pursued high-standard institutional opening-up, and is ready to continue to work with Portuguese-speaking countries to further liberalize and facilitate trade and investment, promote infrastructure connectivity and cooperation in production capacity, develop cooperation in the field of green trade, energy conservation and environmental protection, jointly make the pie of cooperation bigger, and create new growth points, so that the outcomes of development can better benefit people in all countries.

Li Keqiang stressed, Macao serves as a bridge connecting China and Portuguese-speaking countries. The central government of China is firmly committed to implementing the principles of "one country, two systems", "Macao people governing Macao" and a high degree of autonomy, and supports Macao in further building a service platform for business and trade cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, so as to better leverage its unique strengths. He believes that with the joint efforts of China and Portuguese-speaking countries, bilateral win-win cooperation will make steady progress, yield more results and bear more fruits.

The extraordinary meeting was held under the theme "Cooperate to fight against the pandemic, Collaborate for common development". Government delegates from China and eight Portuguese-speaking countries, namely Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and Timor-Leste, participated in the related activities of the meeting both online and offline.