Chinese premier meets with Italian president in Beijing

BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Beijing on Saturday.

Li said that at present, China-Italy relations have maintained healthy and stable development, exchanges and cooperation in various fields have been deepened, and new practical results have been achieved.

China is ready to work with Italy to take the opportunity of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, continue to carry forward the traditional friendship, strengthen all-round mutually beneficial cooperation and push bilateral relations to a higher level, Li said.

Li pointed out that China is willing to work with Italy to promote two-way opening-up, continuously improve the level of bilateral trade and investment facilitation, expand the breadth and depth of cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises, create new growth points of cooperation in innovation and green fields, better achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, and jointly promote development and prosperity.

China welcomes more Italian companies to invest in China and hopes that Italy will create a fair, safe and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies in Italy, he noted.

Li also called on the two sides to implement the outcomes of the meeting of the China-Italy Cultural Cooperation Mechanism, deepen cooperation on culture, tourism, media, education and local affairs, and better promote people-to-people exchanges.

China is willing to strengthen communication and cooperation with Italy to jointly promote the sound and stable development of China-EU relations, he said.

Mattarella said Italy attaches great importance to developing friendly relations with China and looks forward to working with China to implement the important consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, deepen practical cooperation in trade, investment, small and medium-sized enterprises, green development and climate change, strengthen exchanges and mutual learning in culture, education and other fields, and push for sustained and in-depth development of bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Both Italy and China support multilateralism, advocate free trade and open cooperation, and oppose protectionism, he said, noting that Italy is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with China on multilateral affairs, jointly deal with global challenges, and play a positive role in promoting the stable development of EU-China relations.