On January 16, 2018 local time, Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada of Sao Tome and Principe met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Sao Tome.

Patrice Trovoada asked Wang Yi to convey his warm greetings and best wishes to Chinese leaders and thanked Foreign Minister Wang Yi for his first visit of the new year to Sao Tome and Principe. Patrice Trovoada expressed that China, as the world’s second largest economy, is willing to develop friendly relations with Sao Tome and Principe, the second smallest country in Africa, which demonstrates again that China always adheres to the principle that all the countries, big or small, are equal, and delivers a positive message that China is a sincere friend and reliable partner of Africa. Sao Tome and Principe admires President Xi Jinping’s outstanding courage and capacity of state governance and administration and highly appreciates the world’s responsibility displayed by China’s diplomacy. The constructive plans proposed by China to deal with global challenges will exert positive and profound influence on the world’s development in the future. Patrice Trovoada expressed his willingness to reiterate that Sao Tome and Principe will firmly stick to the one-China policy, and hopes to carry out in-depth cooperation with China, so as to achieve the sustained and vigorous development of bilateral relations and yield fruitful results continuously. Sao Tome and Principe would like to tell the world that cooperating with China will bring the country earth-shaking changes as China has achieved, thus propelling the country onto the path of sustainable development. Sao Tome and Principe is willing to steadily advance cooperation with China in various fields and enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges and communication in international and regional affairs, so as to jointly safeguard the interests of the two countries and other developing countries.

Wang Yi conveyed the greetings from Chinese leaders to Patrice Trovoada and said that Mr. Prime Minister’s successful visit to China last April demonstrated that it is a right strategic choice fully conforming to the fundamental and long-term interests of Sao Tome and Principe and its people to resume its diplomatic relations with China, return to the big family of friendly cooperation between China and Africa and become a cooperative partner of China with mutual benefit and win-win results. President Xi Jinping has proposed to build China-Sao Tome and Principe relations into an example of cooperation between big and small countries and South-South Cooperation, clearly charting the course for the two countries’ efforts. Over the past year, exchanges and cooperation in various fields between the two countries have been carried out in an all-around way and important early harvests have been reaped. It is hoped that the two sides could make joint efforts to achieve “curve overtaking” and carry out cooperation especially in advantageous fields of Sao Tome and Principe, such as fish processing industry and tourism, so as to elevate the cooperation level of China and Sao Tome and Principe to that of China and other African countries at an early date.

Wang Yi stressed that Africa is always the root and privileged direction of China’s diplomacy. China is willing to be the friendliest and most reliable friend in the development process of African countries, and help African countries improve their capacity of independent and sustainable development. After returning to the big family of China-Africa cooperation, Sao Tome and Principe hopes to “advance side by side” with other African brothers to jointly promote mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Africa and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries.