On December 22, 2009, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun met with Tanzanian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Seif Ali Iddi, who is here in China for a trilateral ministerial meeting on the Tanzania-Zambia railway.

Iddi spoke highly of the traditional friendship and the friendly cooperative relations between China and Tanzania and thanked for China's great support to Tanzania's national construction. He said Tanzania is ready to work with China to push for sustained, in-depth development of bilateral ties.

Zhai said China and Tanzania are all-weather close friends. The traditional friendship was personally forged by the older generations of the leadership of the two countries. In recent years, the leaders of the two countries have engaged in frequent exchanges of visits, reaching important consensus on enhancing cooperation in all areas. China attaches importance to ties with Tanzania and is ready to work with it to push bilateral friendly cooperative relations to a new level.