Ethiopia

Note: This column mainly includes countries along the Belt and Road and countries that have signed cooperation agreements with China on Belt and Road Initiative.

The year 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the All-round Cooperative Partnership between the People's Republic of China and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. China-Ethiopia relations continued to grow from strength to strength and cooperation in various areas was deepened.

The two countries had frequent high-level exchanges and further deepened their political mutual trust. On 28 March, President Xi Jinping met with Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Dessalegn on the sidelines of the fifth BRICS Summit in Durban, South Africa. From 24 to 26 November, Vice Premier Liu Yandong paid an official visit to Ethiopia. She met with Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, and had talks with Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen. From 25 to 28 September, CPPCC Vice Chairperson Qi Xuchun visited Ethiopia. From 12 to 16 June, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam paid an official visit to China. President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and NPC Chairman Zhang Dejiang met and held talks with him respectively. The two sides reached important consensus on the development of bilateral relations.

Exchanges between political parties of the two countries were frequent. From 13 to 17 September, Zhao Hongzhu, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Deputy Secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, visited Ethiopia. He met with Chairman of Ethiopia's People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn as well as EPRDF Executive Committee Member and Foreign Minister Dr. Tewodros Adhanom, and had talks with Deputy Chairman of EPRDF, Head of the EPRDF Secretariat and Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen. From 22 to 25 March, Chen Fengxiang, Vice Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the ninth Organizational Congress of the EPRDF as the representative of the CPC. An exchange group of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee visited Ethiopia for exchanges and lectures. A high-level EPRDF delegation and the participants of a training program of EPRDF officials paid separate visits to China.

Economic cooperation and trade made steady progress, with bilateral trade continuing to expand. Chinese companies were actively involved in Ethiopia's Growth and Transformation Plan, and new progress was achieved in mutually beneficial cooperation. Ethiopia-related projects under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation were implemented step by step.

Cultural and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation delivered new fruits. During the visit of Vice Premier Liu Yandong to Ethiopia, the two sides signed a number of cooperation documents on increasing the number of Chinese scholarships, sending technical experts to Ethiopia, setting up a Chinese Culture Center in Ethiopia, building a joint leather laboratory and establishing a Confucius Institute at the Addis Ababa University, etc.