China-Nigeria ties ahead among African nations: Li
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier Wednesday, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday met Premier Li Keqiang who noted that mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Nigeria has advanced ahead of cooperation between China and other African countries. Premier Li at a meeting with Jonathan in Beijing pledged to strengthen cooperation with Nigeria and […]
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier Wednesday, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday met Premier Li Keqiang who noted that mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Nigeria has advanced ahead of cooperation between China and other African countries.
Premier Li at a meeting with Jonathan in Beijing pledged to strengthen cooperation with Nigeria and inject vigour into China-Africa strategic partnership. He pointed out that China as a developing country with the largest population in the world and Nigeria as a developing country with the largest population in Africa both face the tasks of speeding up development and improving peoples’ welfare,
According to the premier, China is willing to work with Nigeria to deepen political mutual trust and strengthen cooperation in various fields including trade and investment, infrastructure construction, energy, agriculture and culture to achieve sustainable and healthy development of the two countries’ relations.
He charged the international community to fully respect African people’s own ways of solving their problems, make concrete efforts for African development and for advancing peaceful dialogues regarding hot issues and play a constructive role in promoting Africa’s peace and development.
“China is a reliable friend of Africa and has always supported peace, security and development of the continent”, Li said. President Jonathan on his part said Nigeria attaches great importance to developing relations with China and commended China’s important efforts in safeguarding world peace, stability and development. He thanked China for its assistance to Africa and expressed hope for expanded contact and cooperation between the two countries, progress in developing bilateral relations and positive contributions for Africa-China ties.
In another development, top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang yesterday said China was ready to strengthen friendly cooperation between the legislatures of China and Nigeria. Zhang, chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) said in a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan that the NPC was ready to deepen exchanges with the National Assembly of Nigeria. Zhang said China and Nigeria have always been true friends who respect each other.
He said the NPC places great importance on its relations with the National Assembly of Nigeria and was ready to expand friendly cooperation with the Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives. He said Chinese and Nigerian legislatures should jointly push forward implementing the important consensus that the heads of state of the two countries reached during Jonathan’s visit.