Fico: Economic interests of China, Europe converge

BEOGRAD - Today, more than ever, economic interests of European countries and China converge, and there are enormous tasks ahead that we can take on together, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said in an exclusive opinion piece for Tanjug ahead of the Third Meeting of Heads of Government of China and Central and Eastern European countries in Belgrade, which Tanjug publishes in full.

There are no distant countries anymore; direct contact is just a mouse-click away. Take the relations between China and the European countries for instance: they are becoming ever closer in face of the economic globalization, exchange of high-level visits increasing, economic and trade cooperation broadening, and people-to-people contacts way more frequent.

The two Prime Ministers Summits (in Warsaw and Bucharest) confirmed that China and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) continuously intensify their cooperation within the EU-China relations framework.

Having a concrete roadmap of the Bucharest Guidelines we moved forward and welcome the new encouraging outcomes of the Belgrade Summit.

Bilateral engagement, such as productive cooperation between China and Slovakia, contributes to improvement of China-CEEC ties. This platform builds on the existing potential and opportunities for China and CEEC joint cooperation in different fields including SMEs, business communities and entrepreneurs, academicians, scientists and experts from both sides.

Due to bilateral efforts and positive effects of the China-CEEC Cooperation Mechanism, the bilateral trade has maintained a good momentum.

Since the beginning of this year, Slovak-Chinese trade has followed a rising curve and the investments exchange has become more...