Chongqing - On February 22, Yuan Jiajun, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Chongqing Municipal Committee, and Hu Henghua, Mayor of Chongqing Municipal People's Government, met with H.E. Jan Hoogmartens, the Belgian Ambassador to China, and his delegation to Chongqing.

Hu Henghua warmly welcomed H.E. Jan Hoogmartens and thanked him for visiting Chongqing. He pointed out that President Xi Jinping and Belgium's King Philippe exchanged congratulations on the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between China and Belgium, which set the direction for developing bilateral relations.

Hu said that Chongqing is actively implementing the important consensus of the leaders of China and Belgium and is committed to contributing to developing a comprehensive, friendly cooperative partnership between China and Belgium at the local level. 

Currently, Chongqing is fully implementing the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, accelerating the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, and building a modern socialist Chongqing in the new era.

Belgium is an important partner for Chongqing among the EU countries, and both sides have achieved significant results in many fields of cooperation. Hu expressed his willingness to further strengthen economic and trade exchanges, expand people-to-people exchanges, and explore cooperation in areas such as biomedicine, intelligent connected new energy vehicles, transportation and logistics, science and education, culture, tourism, and establishing sister city relationships, to promote the sustained and healthy development of China-Belgium relations.

Hu also invited H.E. Jan Hoogmartens and Belgian political and business groups to attend the upcoming Smart China Expo and Western China International Fair, seeking cooperation and development opportunities.

The Belgian Ambassador to China thanked Chongqing for its warm reception and said that Chongqing is an important economic center and gateway to the western region of China. 

He visited Chongqing more than 20 years ago and has witnessed tremendous changes and developments in the city. He expressed his confidence in future cooperation between the two sides and expressed his willingness further to strengthen economic and trade cooperation and people-to-people exchanges. 

 H.E. Jan Hoogmartens also welcomed more Chongqing enterprises to invest and do business in Belgium and promised to actively promote exchanges and cooperation between the business communities of the two sides.