On May 24, 2004, President Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires and Prime Minister José Maria Pereira Neves of the Republic of Cape Verde met respectively with visiting Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Lü Guozeng. The leaders of the Cape Verde made positive remarks on the sound cooperative relations between the two countries, and appreciated the Chinese government for its support and help in the process of Cape Verde's development, indicating Cape Verde would like to further enhance existing friendly cooperative relations between the two countries. The leaders of Cape Verde reaffirmed that their government would continue to adhere to the one-China policy, stressing that this is the Cape Verde's fundamental stance. Assistant Minister Lü Guozeng noted that while giving priority to developing traditional friendship and friendly cooperative relations with Cape Verde, the Chinese side would like to support Cape Verde's economic development as always and actively push for Chinese businesses to invest in the country and conduct mutually beneficial cooperation.

Assistant Minister Lü Guozeng started his working visit to Cape Verde on May 22 at the invitation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Community of Cape Verde. During his visit, Lü also held working talks with Foreign Minister of Cape Verde Víctor Manuel Barbosa Borges and the two sides signed the Agreement for Economic and Technological Cooperation between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Cape Verde.