(19 March,2012, Lesotho Sun Hotel)

May I pay respect to HM King Letsie III and the RT Hon. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili and other protocols observed.

Hon. Mm. Pontso Sekatle, Minister of Local Government and Chieftainship of the Kingdom of Lesotho,

Other Senior Government Officials,

Mm. Liao Rong, Director of International Cooperation Division of China Land Surveying and Planning Institute, Ministry of Land and Resources of the People's Republic of China,

And other members of the Chinese Technical Expert team,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening, bomme le bontate, Lumela!

I am very pleased and honoured to attend this dinner. First of all, on behalf of HE Ambassador Hu Dingxian, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate on this successful visit with the joint efforts and professionalism from both sides.

As a Sesotho proverb goes,"Ho tsamaea ke ho bona". In English, it literally says that"to travel is to see." It means the more you travel the more you become open-minded and learned. In China, we also have a saying,"见多识广",meaning "more you travel and see, the more you will gain in knowledge and wisdom." Ambassador Hu and I personally have been to many parts of Lesotho, from Mokhotlong to Quthing and to Qacha's Nek. Just weeks ago, with a visiting Chinese delegation, I took one Lesotho Defense Force (LDF) chopper to Mohale Dam and also to the top of Thaba-Bosiu. Look at the blue water and the towering table mountain down below, and you will feel that a bird's eye view from above is really spectacular.

The technical expert team told me they had the same experience and more. In a short span of time, they set their shoulders to much field study, reaching not only Thaba–Bosiu and Mohale dam, but T'sehlanyane Nature Reserve, Sani Top and some local communities as well. I once joked to a LDF officer that I could be more familiar with some part of Thaba-Bosiu than he did. He thought for a moment and nodded. But he responded rapidly by saying that he might also know better about a certain section of China's Great wall than I do. That I also agreed. I believe that with such high technology as remote sensing, this expert team certainly knows better about Lesotho than many of us. And it is their hope and mission to help our Basotho friends know better about their own country and make best use of their land and make best planning for the sustainable development of this country in the future.

Bomme le bontate,

The Technical cooperation project for land-use planning is something new in our bilateral cooperation. I notice that there are many kind of "first" here. It is the first tech-aid cooperation project of China in the area of land-use planning. With mutual visits, those experts from China to Lesotho to offer technical advice, as well as those technical personnel from Lesotho to China to attend training seminars, many of you present here, for the first time, set foot on each other's land. The team told me that though it is only for about one month, they have been deeply amazed by the wonderful physical landscapes of the mountain-kingdom and extremely overwhelmed by the hospitality and warmth extended to them by their Basotho brothers and sisters. And with the accomplishment of this project, we will have a digital land-use planning map covering the 30,344 square km of the entire Kingdom of Lesotho, for the first time in Lesotho history. Isn't it exciting?!

From this, we can see the great potentials and prospects for our cooperation and our mutually-beneficial relations. As developing countries, we have much to share and much to learn from each other as we are committed to a goal of coordinated and balanced development and constantly upgrading the livelihood of our peoples.

As the Hon. Minister Sekatle rightly pointed out in her earlier address, our two countries are faced with similar challenges in terms of how to preserve and protect agricultural land and how to prevent and stop land degradation and desertification. I believe with this project being carried on and out, we will witness fresh content enriching China-Lesotho relations, still wider areas of cooperation between our two countries and closer bonds between our two peoples in the years to come.

Bomme le bontate,

Finally, I wish to extend our hearty thanks to the Hon. Minister Sekatle and relevant departments of the Lesotho Government for all the efforts in making detailed arrangements and ensuring a safe and comfortable stay for the team during their visit. Of course, our thanks also go to all members of the expert team who have been working very hard and accomplished their mission perfectly. Of course, they will be back again in the latter half of this year and Basotho technical personnel will be in China within this year. But since the Chinese expert team are leaving tomorrow, let us wish them a safe journey back home. Bonne Voyage.

Thanks for attention. Kea leboha.