Dr Christopher Chia,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for your friendly remarks and what you have done for holding this ceremony. It is my great pleasure and honor to participate today’s function.

On behalf of China’s Ministry of Education, I am delighted to donate 1,000 volumes of Chinese language books to the National Library Board Singapore.

Today’ donation has a specific significance. As I know, this is the first time China’s Ministry of Education donates books to an overseas library.  

Singapore is a very precious and unique neighboring country of China. It is the only country, apart from China that takes Chinese as one of its official languages. So today’s donation is not only our support to the Speaking Mandarin Campaign and Chinese language study in Singapore, a step to broaden our education exchanges and cooperation, but also reflects the goodwill of the Chinese people to the Singaporeans.

We know that the library system here is famous around the region, with its large amount of materials and high standard members. I am sure that Singapore library users could take advantage of the books we donated, to know more about Chinese language skill, more about China, its people, heritage and contemporary literature.

I do agree with Dr Christopher that China and Singapore have always been enjoying good diplomatic relations. Chinese Government attaches great importance to the Sino-Singaporean relations. Our relationship is based on two tracks.

Track One is bilateral cooperation. Our political relations maintain good momentum. Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong held a bilateral meeting on the sideline of 10+1 Special Summit in Bangkok at the end of April. And through diplomatic channel, we just fixed the dates for Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s forthcoming trip to China. Our new Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing paid a very successful official visit here at the end of July. We have identified four priority areas in future cooperation, namely hi-technology, Chinese enterprises’ ‘going abroad’, Western China Development Campaign, and human resource training.

Our economic and trade relations are also going very well. In 2002 the bilateral trade volume hit US$ 14 billion. Although both countries were affected by SARS in the first half of this year, the two-way trade volume amounted to US$8.5 billion, up 43%.

Track Two is multilateral cooperation, especially in the framework of East Asia 10+3, 10+1. China’s relations with ASEAN have made remarkable progress in recent years. Two years ago, we also identified five priority cooperation areas, namely IT, agriculture, Mekong Basin Development, mutual investment and HRD. During the sixth round of 10+1 summit held in Cambodia in November 2002, we signed agreement on establishment of China-ASEAN FTA within 10 years. We also signed the Declaration of Conductor in South China Sea and issued the Joint Declaration on Non-traditional Security Cooperation. This year’s summit will be held in Bali Island of Indonesia at the beginning of October. The Chinese side has proposed some new initiatives to enhance the 10+1 cooperation, such as upgrading the China-ASEAN relationship to a strategic partnership, China’s accession to Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. China regards Singapore as a key member of ASEAN for Singapore has always played an active role in expanding of friendly cooperation between China and ASEAN.

Let’s make joint efforts to create a better future for China-Singapore cooperation.

Thank you.