MACAO, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng met with delegates of Portuguese-speaking countries here Monday to seek closer and stronger ties with them in various fields.
While meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Portugal Paulo Portas, Gao said since the establishment of comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Portugal in 2005, political mutual trust between the two countries has been enhanced along with progress in pragmatic cooperation.
China's statistics show trade between China and Portugal reached 4.01 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, up 1.3 percent from a year earlier. Gao said it is China's hope to strengthen cooperation with Portugal in finance, energy, environment, tourism, agriculture and other fields.
Portas said Portugal is willing to further cooperate with China for a stronger strategic partnership for greater trade and investment between the two countries.
The two sides also reached consensus on pragmatic cooperation and opposition to trade protectionism under the framework of the forum.
Gao also met with ministers from Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Cape Verde and Mozambique, who are here to attend the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries.
He said China and Guinea-Bissau enjoyed steady growth in trade and economic cooperation in recent years. In 2012, two-way trade reached 23 million U.S. dollars, up 18.9 percent year on year. China hopes bilateral cooperation will continue and achieve fruitful results.
Gao said China and East Timor saw a trade volume of more than 63 million U.S. dollars in 2012, a great surge from about 1 million U.S. dollars in 2003, the second year after they forged diplomatic ties. He hoped bilateral trade and investment could be expanded. The two sides signed an intergovernmental agreement on economic and technological cooperation after the meeting.
Gao expressed China's determination to strengthen cooperation with Cape Verde and Mozambique. Intergovernmental agreements on economic and technological cooperation were also signed between China and the two countries.
The forum, which runs from Monday through Wednesday, consists of an anniversary celebration conference, the Ministerial Conference and a series of bilateral meetings, in which documents on trade and economic cooperation for 2013 to 2016 will be inked.
Inaugurated in 2003, the forum aims at strengthening economic relations and cooperation between China and the Portuguese- speaking countries with Macao playing an important role of a platform between them.