China, Romania vow to further strengthen relationship

MUNICH, Feb. 7 -- Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi has met with Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Lucian Aurescu with both sides saying they hoped to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Yang met with Aurescu on the sidelines of the 51st Munich Security Conference on Friday. Yang said the China-Romania relationship has been moving forward rapidly in recent years and there have been close high-level official exchanges.

China and Romania jointly celebrated the 65th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations and the tenth anniversary of their comprehensive, friendly and cooperative partnership last year, and the bilateral relationship has entered a new era, Yang said.

China attaches great importance to the China-Romania relationship and is willing to maintain high-level exchanges, deepen political mutual trust, expand the practical cooperation in energy, high-speed train, agriculture and other fields, enhance people-to-people exchange and boost the traditional China-Romania friendship.

Romania has always been an important participant and promoter of the cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe. China is in favour of Romania playing a greater role in the "16+1" cooperation and is willing to cooperate with the 16 countries including Romania to push the cooperation forward, Yang said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between China and the Europe European. "We hope that Romania can exert its special influence within the EU and join hands with China to advance the China-Europe relations in a healthy and sustainable way," said Yang.

Aurescu said Romania and China have been important partners and the development of bilateral relationship between the two countries have always maintained a good momentum.

He said that the two countries had close high-level exchanges in recent years; The economic and trade cooperation keeps on deepening and the cooperation on major important projects in energy, infrastructure and other fields has been gaining ground.

He added that Romania hopes to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges and looks forward to further strengthening bilateral relationship with China.

Investment from more Chinese companies is welcome in Romania, Aurescu said, adding that he would like to see the Romanian culture center in Beijing to open as soon as possible to further boost the people-to-people and cultural communication between the two countries.

"Romania is willing to continue to boost the cooperation between Central and Eastern Europe and China and play an active role in strengthening the relationship between Europe and China," he said.