Tuesday, 12 April 2011
The prospects of development of Armenian-Chinese cooperation were discussed
Today the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received the delegation led by the member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau, Li Changchun.
Welcoming the guests, the head of the RA government spoke with satisfaction about the relations established between the two countries. “The Armenian-Chinese relations are of great importance to us, and we are assured, that your visit will promote the development of mutual relations. Economic ties should be developed and expanded between PRC and RA because there is a huge unrealized potential. The level of political relations is rather high, there is no unresolved problem in the political sphere, but the economic relations are left behind. We’ve noticed some positive trend in that direction recently, and the opening of Armenian-Chinese joint venture “Chansi-Nairit” is the vivid evidence if the latter.”
Tigran Sargsyan welcomed the eagerness of the Chinese businessmen to make investments in a number of sectors of RA economy, such as mining and chemical industry, high technologies, construction materials and agriculture. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of the Armenian-Chinese forum, taking place today, in identifying new opportunities.
The Prime Minister said that he highly appreciated the activities of “Shanghai-Expo 2010” International Exhibition and expressed his gratitude for the beautifully organized exhibition.
He also thanked the government of PRC for the technical assistance to Armenia.
Li Changchun thanked for the warm welcome and passed the greetings of the Prime Minister of China Wen Jiabao to Tigran Sargsyan.
Speaking about the importance of deepening of the Armenian-Chinese cooperation, he noted: “The mutual political trust between our countries is on a high level, and we should use these good ground of political dialogue to expand our relations in education, cultural and technical spheres.”
The both parties emphasized the importance of implementation of the great potential in economic sphere and discussed a wide range of issues of great mutual interest. In this context, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan presented the projects discussed during his visit to China in 2010. Particularly, the parties talked about China’s possible participation in the construction of north-south railway, basalt processing joint enterprise construction, as well as about development of cooperation in tourism and mining industry. The importance of the Armenian- Chinese intergovernmental commission in the mutual economic relations was emphasized. The deepening of inter-regional cooperation was stressed out as a long-term perspective. Issues about establishing humanitarian, cultural and educational ties were also discussed during the meeting. Speaking about the students’ exchange programs, Li Chagchun stressed the importance of the activities of the branch of Confucius institute in Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Bryusov and added that this year China provided the students of the linguistic university with 30 scholarships, including the students of Confucius institute. In the context of strengthening the cultural ties, the deepening of the cooperation between the ministries of culture of the two countries was stressed out.
The Prime Minister also stressed the importance of establishing a direct air communication between the two countries and sent his greeting to his Chinese counterpart.
The meeting was followed by the official ceremony of signing documents about the cooperation between the two countries. An agreement about technical and economic cooperation was signed between PRC and RA. On behalf of the Armenian government the agreement was signed by the deputy foreign minister Sergey Manasaryan and on behalf of the Chinese government by the deputy minister for commerce Chen Jian. Memoranda of Cooperation was also signed between the press and publishing department of PRC and the ministry of culture of RA, as well as between the Armenian ‘Impulse’ radio station and the international radio of China. The first memoranda was signed on behalf of the Armenian government by Hasmik Poghosyan and on behalf of PCR government by Liu Bingjian and the second one by the general manager of the Armenian “Impulse” radio station and by the general manager of the Chinese international radio.
