Zambia to advance all-weather friendship with China: parliament speaker

Zambia stands ready to advance its all-weather friendship with China and looks to enhance all-round cooperation with the world's second largest economy, Speaker of Zambia's National Assembly Nelly Mutti said in an interview with China Central Television in Beijing on Thursday.

Mutti led a delegation to visit China from Oct 25 to 31, the first trip to China during her term of office.

During her stay in China, Mutti visited Beijing, Zhejiang and Qinghai to learn about China's agriculture, new energy and grassroots governance. She said she was impressed the most by the way China has used technology.

"I think what impressed me most is that the way China has employed technology to advance whatever skills or ways of doing things in the past. I know that China at one point was considered as a poor country, but today because of the employment of technology, China is now the second largest economy in the world," she said.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between China and Zambia. Mutti said over the past 60 years, bilateral relations have continued to flourish based on mutual respect, solidarity and cooperation, and the leaders of today have responsibilities to build on this friendship and take it to even higher levels.

"We are celebrating 60 years, and at the same time of this celebration of 60 years, our current leaders, President Xi Jinping and President Hakainde Hichilema, have also reaffirmed this all-weather friendship and we've elevated it to an all-weather friendship, strategic cooperation and partnership. So it could not have happened at a better time than now," she said.

During the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September, the two heads of state reached consensus on strengthening cooperation in the fields of new energy, water resources, and power. Mutti said that the two sides have broad prospects for future cooperation in these fields.

"Because of the drought that we suffered as a country, we were hit with the El Nino and we suffered a drought, so that means we had a lot of power outages. And when our President Hakainde Hichilema came to visit China, I think that was one of the major assignments that he had to do and to ask some investors from China to go and invest in that industry," she said.

China launched 18 new international air cargo routes in October, primarily to Asian and European countries.

According to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, these new routes include eight to Europe, seven to other Asian countries, and three to North America, which involve 14 airline companies, and seven of them are domestic. Most of the cargoes will be cross-border e-commerce goods, perishables, and electronics.

With these new routes, there will be at least 30 more round-trip cargo flights every week.

As of Thursday, China had launched 145 new international air cargo routes this year with over 400 weekly round-trip flights, advancing global connectivity and creating a more robust international logistics network.