On April 14, 2011, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Sanya City of south China's Hainan Province. Zapatero is here for a visit to China and to attend the annual meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia.

President Hu said Spain is a good friend and good partner of China in Europe. China and Spain have in recent years maintained frequent high-level exchanges and close dialogue at all levels. Both sides have always understood and supported each other's major concerns and achieved remarkable progress in pragmatic cooperation in various areas through their joint efforts to cope with the global financial crisis. Economic and trade relationship of the two countries has expanded from trade to investment, technology and emerging industries, Hu said, noting that telecommunications, finance and renewable energy are becoming new highlights of cooperation. Both sides have conducted fruitful humanities exchanges and successfully held the "language year" serial activities, which deepened mutual understanding and friendship between both peoples.

Hu said that Spain is an important country in the European Union. China attaches great importance to the bilateral relations with Spain, and is willing to work with Spain to promote bilateral exchanges and cooperation and better serve economic and social development of their respective countries for the benefit of both peoples. Both sides should make efforts in the following four major aspects to push forward the ties. First, consolidate political trust. Hu urged both sides to maintain high-level exchanges, keep closer exchanges between the governments, legislative bodies, political parties and localities of the two countries to deepen mutual understanding and trust. Second, expand mutually beneficial cooperation. Both sides should give full play to the role of the mixed committee on economy and trade, industry associations and other mechanisms, strive to expand trade scale, push forward trade and investment facilitation and gradually achieve balanced trade development through stronger cooperation. Both sides should deepen investment and technology cooperation on wind, solar and other new energy as well as telecommunications, infrastructure construction and other areas. Efforts should also be made to jointly develop the third-party market and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. Third, enhance cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Hu called on both sides to expand the scale of two-way language teaching and actively explore cultural and tourism cooperation. Fourth, keep closer international cooperation. He suggested both countries strengthen consultations and cooperation on the UN's reform, climate change and financial stability and continue to offer mutual understanding and support on major issues of mutual concern. China appreciates Spain's efforts for financial stability and economic recovery.

Zapatero said he was glad to visit China and attend the Boao Forum for Asia. Spain is the best friend of China in the European Union, and vice versa. Spain cherishes China's precious support on economic issues. China, as a responsible power, plays an important role for world peace and stability. Currently Spain-China relationship is at a sound stage of development. Spain is ready to further cooperative partnership with China, intensify high-level exchanges, strengthen political relations and advance cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, finance, tourism, culture and renewable energy. Spain welcomes more Chinese businesses to invest in the country. Spain hopes to continue advancing EU-China relations and supports the European Union to recognize China's full market economy status as soon as possible and lift the arms embargo to China, Zapatero said. He said he hopes that the two countries would deepen coordination and cooperation under the multilateral mechanisms such as the Group of 20.

Ling Jihua, Wang Huning, Dai Bingguo and other officials attended the meeting.