Chinese Premier’s trip to Hungary boasts fruitful results
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s trip to Hungary has yielded fruitful results and injected new vitality to China-CEEC relations.
Li arrived in Budapest on Nov. 26 for an official visit to Hungary and for the sixth meeting of heads of government of China and 16 Central and Eastern European countries. The meeting produced a list of deliverables which covers multi-fields, to further boost cooperation between China and CEE countries.
40 DOCUMENTS SIGNED
A total of 40 documents were signed during the meeting, including inspection and quarantine protocols for alfalfa, bombus, honey, fodder and beef exports to China, which were signed with 6 countries respectively. Li also welcomed CEE countries to take an active part in the first China International Import Expo to be held in Shanghai next year.
A batch of new cooperation documents are also among the list. It is noteworthy that China has signed memoranda of understanding with Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia to promote the Belt and Road Initiative, signaling that all 16 Central and Eastern European countries have agreed to align with the initiative.
According to the list, China has signed project contracts or agreements with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovakia in regard to railways, wind power, telecommunications, sewage treatment plant, logistics, airports, etc.
China is willing to promote connectivity by land, sea, air and online with CEE countries, Li said.
FINANCIAL INTEGRATION ENHANCED
Li announced the establishment of China-CEEC Inter-Bank Association in a keynote speech to the seventh China-CEEC Economic and Trade Forum on Monday. The China Development Bank will provide an equivalent amount of 2 billion euros (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) as development-oriented financial cooperation loans for the inter-bank association.
The Chinese premier also announced the establishment of the second phase of China-Central and Eastern Europe Investment Cooperation Fund that totaled 1 billion dollars, which will be mainly invested in Central and Eastern Europe.
China supports commercial and development financial institutions to provide finance for bilateral cooperation projects, supports companies from Central and Eastern European countries to issue Panda Bonds in China, and also supports the two sides to conduct renminbi-denominated financing business for their cooperation projects and expand the scale of currency swap and trade settlement in local currency, Li said.
China has signed currency swap agreements with Hungary, Albania and Serbia so far.
China Unionpay, the country's largest bank card payment processor, signed a bilateral cooperation MoU with the National Bank of Serbia on Monday, to promote the comprehensive acceptance and issuance of Unionpay cards in Serbia.
Meanwhile, the cooperation between China and Serbia has achieved new progress in the transport sector. On Tuesday, work to modernize and reconstruct the Belgrade-Stara Pazova segment of Hungary-Serbia railway started. The railway, linking Budapest in Hungary and Belgrade in Serbia, is the first railway infrastructure project in Europe of which China takes part in construction.
