On the evening of January 22, 2008, Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Hongbo met with and held dinner in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse for visiting Permanent Secretary of State of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Iceland Gretar Mar Sigurdsson who was in Beijing to host the regional diplomats meeting of Iceland.

Wu made positive remarks on the development of China-Iceland relations. He noted that President Olafur R. Grimsson was invited to the opening of Shanghai Special Olympics and paid a working visit to China October last year. During the talks with President Hu Jintao, the two presidents reached wide consensus on further tapping the cooperation potential and pushing forward the development of bilateral relations in various fields, which has enhanced the bilateral relations greatly. Both sides should implement such consensus and make continuous efforts to promote the development of bilateral ties.

Sigurdsson agreed with Wu's remarks on the bilateral relations and noted that the government of Iceland attaches great importance to the relations with China and resolutely adheres to the one-China policy. Iceland is satisfied with the high-level exchanges with China, will encourage more government ministers to visit China and welcomes more Chinese delegations to Iceland. The Icelandic side hopes promote the bilateral economic and trade cooperation by various ways such as holding bilateral free trade zone negotiations and participating in the 2010 Shanghai Expo and strengthen the bilateral exchanges in the fields of science and technology, culture and education.

Both sides also exchanged opinions on the international and regional issues of common interest.