Pedro Sanchez tells forum in Beijing that he looks forward to greater exchanges, deeper collaboration
At a high-end forum that opened in Beijing on Sept 9, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was upbeat about the prospects for more exchanges and greater collaboration between his country and China in the coming years.
“There are many opportunities for both China and Spain, and the two countries should be brave enough to seize them,” Sanchez, who paid an official visit to China from Sept 8 to 11, told the opening ceremony of the 9th meeting of the China-Spain Forum.
In his speech, the Spanish leader invited various parties to strengthen cooperation and promote mutual understanding between the two countries through the high-end forum.
Spain and China have had extensive exchanges, and last year the two countries jointly celebrated the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations.
Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the nations’ bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership, and Spain “will further strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various aspects”, Sanchez said.
Speaking about exchanges between the two countries, he thanked China for granting Spanish citizens visa exemptions, which were facilitated under a pilot visa-free scheme that has been extended to the end of 2025. Spain has yet to grant visa exemptions to all Chinese citizens.
He noted that tourism between the two countries fully recovered in the first half of this year and will exceed projected levels by the end of the year.
At the forum, Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong noted that Spain, as a major country in Europe and a member of the European Union, plays an important role in regional and international affairs, and that Spain is “a trustworthy partner of China within the EU”.
Meanwhile, China will unswervingly improve its level of opening-up to the outside world, he said.
“We welcome and look forward to Spain’s in-depth involvement in China’s high-level opening-up process, sharing the dividends of development and realizing mutual benefits,” he said.
The China-Spain Forum was established in 2003 and has served as an important mechanism for two-way exchange, dialogue, and cooperation. Eight meetings were held before the forum this week.
Francisco Riberas, president of the Spain-China Council Foundation, said the latest meeting on Sept 9 was “very special” for everyone present.
“Nine years have passed since the last meeting (of the forum in 2015),” he said, adding that “the recent years have been very difficult because we have also gone through the COVID-19 epidemic”.
He underlined the need to use such dialogues to “maintain the promotion of economic engagement between the two countries to deal with all these negative shocks that we have been faced with”.
Yang Wanming, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, said that in the new era, “bilateral cooperation has continued to go deeper and deeper and benefit the two peoples” because the two nations have upheld the spirit of paying mutual respect and treating each other as equals under the strategic guidance of the two countries’ leaders.
“Today in China, the Spanish element is everywhere, thousands of Spanish companies have invested in China, and high-quality goods from various industries are very popular among Chinese customers,” he said.
A number of companies from China in areas such as finance, trade, construction, and energy are deeply committed to Spain’s market, and the Spanish translations of Chinese-language classics have helped more Spanish friends feel the charm of Chinese culture, he said.
In Shanghai on Sept 10, Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, Spain’s second cultural center in China, was inaugurated. Sanchez attended the launch ceremony, where he noted that Spain is one of the European Union’s most active countries in the field of Chinese language study.
Xinhua contributed to this story.
