On December 13, 2004, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing met with WFP's executive director James Maurice who was on a visit to China. Both sides exchanged opinions on strengthening cooperation between China and WFP.

Foreign Minister Li positively commented the contribution of WFP to eradicating poverty and hunger in the world, noted that China attaches importance to cooperation with WFP and hopes to work together to achieve the millennium development goals. Li stressed that China pays close attention to solving the problems of poverty and hunger, takes the problems of "agriculture, rural area and farmers" as the priority of government agenda and hopes to continue to get support from WFP. China has accumulated many experiences in the fields of agriculture and food during its development course and is willing to share with other developing countries via WFP.

In the past 25 years China reduced its poverty population from 250 million to 30 million, which is a major contribution to eradicating global poverty and hunger and realizing the millennium development goals, said Maurice. WFP hopes to further build partnership with China, help other developing countries to share the poverty alleviation experiences of China and jointly promote international cooperation in the area of development.