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Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing Attends the Inaugural Ceremony of Liberia's 23rd President Sirleaf and Pays an Official Visit to Liberia

2006-01-24 00:00

From January 15 to 16, 2006, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, as Special Envoy of President Hu Jintao, headed a delegation to attend the inaugural ceremony of Liberia's 23rd President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, and paid an official visit to Liberia. This is the first visit by the Chinese foreign minister since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1977 and the Liberian side attaches great importance to this visit and extended high-standard reception to Li. The visit achieved a great success.

Foreign Minister Thomas Yaya Nimely of the Liberian National Transitional Government welcomed Li and saw him off at the airport on a special trip and Vice President Boakai also saw him off in person at the airport. During his visit, Foreign Minister Li met respectively with President Charles Gyude Bryant, Foreign Minister Nimely and Acting Parliament Speaker George Koukou of the Liberian National Transitional Government, as well as newly-elected President Sirleaf and Speaker of the House of Representatives Edwin Snowe, and held bilateral talks and signed the Agreement on Economic and Technological Cooperation between China and Liberia with Vice President Boakai.

Foreign Minister Li conveyed respectively the oral messages and best wishes from President Hu, Chairman Wu Bangguo of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Vice President Zeng Qinghong to the Liberian side and congratulated Liberia for realizing peace and successfully holding a nation-wide general election and new President for being sworn in to office as scheduled. He also appreciated and thanked Liberia for attaching great importance to developing relations with China and resolutely pursuing the one-China position. Li indicated that the Chinese government attaches great importance to developing bilateral friendly cooperation in various areas and will actively encourage businesses with strength to conduct economic and trade cooperation of mutual benefits in Liberia in a bid to support its economic growth with practical action and advance the process of national reconstruction. To this end, he put forward "four-point suggestions".

The Liberian side appreciated and thanked for the oral messages and best wishes from President Hu and other Chinese leaders and asked Foreign Minister Li to convey their greetings. They held that China is Liberia's true friend and the resumption of diplomatic ties shows the aspiration of the Liberian people and conforms to the fundamental interest of Liberia and its people. They reaffirmed that Liberia will resolutely pursue the one-China policy and develop friendly cooperative relations of long-term stability with China.

President Sirleaf indicated that since the resumption of diplomatic ties, bilateral relations have been developing rapidly and the cooperation between both sides has scored fruitful achievements. Sirleaf sincerely thanked for various disinterested assistance offer by China, noting that the new Liberian government will resolutely pursue the one-China policy and support China's grand cause of reunification. It would also like to actively push for development of bilateral friendly cooperative relations with its available resources and hopes that the Chinese government will support businesses to invest in Liberia in a bid to conduct economic and trade cooperation of mutual benefits and support and help Liberia's national reconstruction.

House Speaker Snowe indicated that mutual political understanding and support and economic cooperation of mutual benefits for common development conform to the fundamental interest of the two peoples. The Liberian national transitional parliament adopted a resolution on abiding by the one-China policy last August and the new Liberian parliament will strictly observe this resolution and hopes to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the NPC of China and promote comprehensive development of bilateral relations.

Foreign Minister Li also managed to find time to visit Chinese peacekeeping personnel, aid specialists and the staff of the Chinese Embassy in Liberia.

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