Mitsotakis met with the Prime Minister of China Li Qiang

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China Li Qiang, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, as part of his official visit to China.

At the start of their meeting, Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the following statement:

“Mr. Prime Minister, first of all, thank you very much, on behalf of our delegation, for your very warm welcome on this beautiful autumn day in Beijing. I am really glad to be here with you today. My visit reflects the importance we attach to this bilateral relationship. First of all, I would like to express my condolences on the death of Mr. Li Keqiang, former Premier of the People’s Republic of China.

I would like to repeat what you mentioned: that our bilateral relations are at a very good level. I would like to remind that last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our diplomatic relations. During these years, I believe we have built a strong, mutually beneficial relationship based on respect and understanding and guided by the fundamental principles and values ​​of the United Nations Charter. Our two countries are linked by a very stable institutional framework that includes a series of agreements and memoranda of understanding.

And of course, the most important document is the Strategic Partnership, the Integrated Strategic Partnership, which was signed 15 years ago. I still have very good memories both of my visit to Shanghai, when I had the opportunity to meet you in a different capacity, but also of the very important visit made by President Xi to Greece in 2019.

I would like to point out that we greatly appreciate the recent upgrade of my country’s credit rating by two of the largest Chinese rating agencies. This is a tangible sign of the confidence of Chinese investors in the progress of the Greek economy and its prospects, and we hope that this meeting will be a springboard to continue attracting Chinese investments to Greece and to further strengthen the economic cooperation between our two countries.

I would like to point out that we continue to count on China as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to continue to promote world peace and the rules-based international order.

I believe that our two countries, as cradles of ancient civilizations, they can work together to address global issues and global environmental challenges, especially climate change, which is an area in which China has made significant progress in recent years.

Finally, let me point out that we have a very strong partnership in the field of culture, as one would expect. We represent two of the most ancient civilizations. As you know, the Minister of Culture of Greece was very recently in Beijing and this visit demonstrated the broad scope and strong ties that connect our two countries from a cultural point of view.

Dear Prime Minister, let me thank you again for this very warm welcomeand we look forward to a very productive discussion.”

The Prime Minister then laid a wreath at the People’s Heroes Monument in Tiananmen Square.