China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed on Monday to step up investment cooperation and push for greater common development.
The agreement was reached between Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang and UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a meeting of the High-Level China-UAE Investment Cooperation Committee, which was co-chaired by them via video link.
Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that under the strategic guidance of the two countries' presidents, the China-UAE comprehensive strategic partnership has flourished, setting a model for relations between China and Arab countries in the new era.
The establishment of the High-Level China-UAE Investment Cooperation Committee is conducive to promoting more achievements in bilateral cooperation and meets the common aspirations and practical needs of both sides, he said.
China stands ready to work with the UAE to thoroughly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, further expand the scale and increase the returns of investment cooperation, and push the China-UAE comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level, Ding said.
He highly affirmed the achievements made since the establishment of the committee and put forth a three-point proposal on deepening investment cooperation between the two countries.
First, Ding said, the committee should play a steering and coordinating role in bilateral cooperation, calling on the two countries to strengthen alignment of strategies, plans and policies in the investment field and jointly come up with new ideas and ways to advance cooperation.
Second, he said, the two countries should jointly map out and implement a batch of major projects in key areas under the Belt and Road Initiative, and make sure that these projects play a leading role in bilateral investment cooperation.
Third, he called for giving full play to the role of enterprises as the main players in bilateral cooperation, stressing the need to encourage and guide the enterprises to actively explore more areas for and innovate their ways of cooperation, so as to deliver more solid progress from bilateral investment cooperation.
For his part, Mansour said the UAE highly appreciates the closely developing relations with China and is full of confidence in the Chinese economy.
The UAE is willing to enhance investment cooperation with China and push for greater complementarity of the two countries' strengths and common prosperity, he said.
The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on the work in the next stage, and reached broad consensus.

China, UAE agree to deepen investment cooperation

China, UAE agree to deepen investment cooperation