| Premier Wen Jiabao Meets Visiting Israeli President Moshe Katsav |
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| 2004-11-28 14:10 |
On December 19, 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao met with visiting Israeli President Moshe Katsav.
Wen said that although the history of the diplomatic relationship between China and Israel is relatively short, the two countries have established friendly cooperative relations featuring mutual respect in the political field and mutual benefit in the economic field. Currently, the trade volume of the two countries has increased to 30 times that of the initial stage of the establishment of bilateral ties. The two countries have signed agreements on trade, investment protection and technological cooperation, and conducted effective cooperation in various fields. The cooperation on research in water resources, biological medicine and nano materials as well as four programs on cooperation on agriculture and stockbreeding including China-Israel demo farm exemplify the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. Wen said that there are fairly strong complementarities between China and Israel on economic and trade cooperation, with great potentials for development untapped. Now that China is pursuing strategies of the West Development and the revitalizing of the old industrial base in the north-east, Israel can participate in the economic building of China with its advantages in technology, capital and management. It is believed that as long as both sides grasp the opportunities with the principle of "complementing each other with respective advantages and achieving common development", China-Israel economic and trade cooperation will definitely reach a higher level. Finally, Wen pointed out that the development of bilateral friendly cooperative relations has brought about substantial benefits for the two countries and the two peoples, which complies with the fundamental interests of both peoples. The Chinese side is willing to work with the Israeli side to promote stable and sound development of bilateral relations.
Katsav noted that the Israeli side is satisfied with the rapid development of bilateral friendly cooperative relations. Both nations bestowed with abundant wisdom, Jewish people and Chinese people have made remarkable contributions to the progress of human civilization. There are quite big potentials for bilateral cooperation in various fields, and Israel will try its best to develop cooperation with China, especially the cooperation in economic and trade, research and development to benefit the two peoples and promote the progress of mankind.
The two sides also exchanged views on the Middle East issue.
(Information from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC ) |
Bilateral Visits