On Aug 20, Shi Taifeng, secretary of the Suzhou city Party committee, met Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen and his delegation in Suzhou who attended the opening ceremony of the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

Maldivian president (L,2nd) visits Suzhou on Aug 20.[Photo/Xinhua]

Representing the Suzhou city government, Shi Taifeng expressed his warm welcome of Yameen’s visit and wished success for the Maldivian athletes in the Youth Olympic Games and hoped they would also make new friends.

Shi Taifeng said that the Maldives and China enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges. Over 600 years ago, the well-known Chinese navigator Zheng He led his fleet to the Maldives, and the starting place of his voyage was Taicang in Suzhou.

Last year, Chinese president Xi Jinping put forward the idea of constructing the 21st century’s maritime Silk Road. As the Maldives is an important country along the route, the Suzhou government is willing to make a joint contribution for this with the Maldivian government, Shi said.

He also hoped that Suzhou could strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Maldives in fields such as trade, tourism, culture and sports. At the same time, Shi expressed his welcome of the Maldivian team’s participation in the 53rd World Table Tennis Championships next year in May.

Yameen said that he really valued this visit to Suzhou, and the water environment and natural environment had impressed him a lot. For the World Table Tennis Championships to be held next year in Suzhou, he expressed his expectation for the participation of Maldivian table tennis players. Yameen hoped to further strengthen his cooperation with Suzhou, and he showed his active promotion of building friendship towns between its capital Male and Suzhou.

During his visit in Suzhou, Yameen and his delegation visited the construction and development achievements of Suzhou Industrial Park. At the moment of parting, Yameen wrote down his good wishes to Suzhou with Dhivehi, the mother tongue of about 350,000 people in the Republic of Maldives. He wrote the words: “Good wishes to the Industrial Park and Suzhou. This is a historic visit. On behalf of the Maldivian people, I extend best wishes to you. Chinese people and Suzhou residents are very nice.”

The Chinese ambassador to the Maldives, Wang Fukang and mayor of Suzhou Zhou Naixiang, also attended the meeting during Yameen's visit to the industrial park.