PM Ponta started his visit to China
source: Politics | nineoclock | June 30th, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Victor Ponta leaves Hong Kong for Beijing to meet China’s president and the head of the Chinese Government.
Romania’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta continues his tour in Asia by visiting China, on Sunday arriving in this country at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang.
Ponta landed in Shenzhen, from where he left for Hong Kong. He was scheduled to meet Sunday the regional governor and representatives of the Chinese corporations Huawei, China Nuclear Electric and ZTE.
Today, Ponta leaves for Beijing to meet China’s president and the head of the Chinese Government. The visit to China is part of an Asia tour that also included Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Thus, on Thursday the PM had meetings with his Kazakh counterpart Serik Akhmetov and with the president of KazMunaiGaz, an occasion on which they discussed the opportunity of some new investments. The Kazakh side made the proposal to deliver gas from Kazakhstan to Romania, an option in this respect being an extension of the South Stream from Bulgaria to Romania. According to a release issued by Romania’s Government, the partners from Kazakhstan equally voiced openness and willingness to sign a commercial contract with a view to delivering uranium for the domestic consumption of the nuclear units at Cernavoda (southern Romania). “Romania’s delegation, headed by Premier Victor Ponta, during the bilateral meetings tried to open opportunities for extending the presence of Romanian companies on the market in Kazakhstan and the development of commercial relations. In this respect the Romanian side suggested that the partners from Kazakhstan should use more intensely the Oil Terminal in Constanta (south-eastern Romania), but also the Kazakh airlines should open some flights from Astana to Bucharest. With a view to supporting the business environment in its efforts to identify cooperation niches, the Romanian side proposed and the Kazakh side agreed that the meeting of the joint economic commission should be convened this autumn. Last but not least, the governmental officials of Kazakhstan invited Romania to participate with its own stand in the World Exhibition Astana 2017,” also reads the Government’s release quoted by Agerpres.
On Friday, in Tashkent – Uzbekistan, PM Ponta pleaded for the intensification of economic relations with Uzbekistan, pointing to the “very low” cooperation level in many activity areas. The Premier expressed confidence during a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev, that the economic relations between the two countries can be reinforced, highlighting Uzbekistan’s great potential and strategic position in the region. “I am much honored to be the first Romanian Premier who visits your country and I am doing it with the conviction that as of today, relations between our countries can follow a direction with a far broader development horizon. Romania and Uzbekistan cannot possibly have any issues of disagreement. There is however, a host of areas where we can build and develop, because they are now at a very low level. Let’s just take the political realm, the last meeting between the Presidents of the two countries was ten years ago. I believe that we should more often have such summit meetings, at President and Prime Minister level,” said Victor Ponta. He also referred to the need for “strategic cooperation” between Bucharest and Tashkent, reminding that in 2014 NATO is supposed to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, a state bordering with Uzbekistan.
Shenzhen companies’ investments are welcome in Romania, PM Ponta says
source: AGERPRES 1 Iul 2013
The investments of the companies based in Shenzhen – China’s special economic area, where the world’s telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE are headquartered – are welcome in Romania and the economic relations can develop very well, visiting Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said at a meeting with Shenzhen Deputy Mayor Tang Jie on Monday.
Ponta began a visit to China on Sunday, when he met Hong Kong governor and continued on Monday by visiting Shenzhen-based companies and the local authorities.
He met the deputy mayor of Shenzhen, the first special economic area of China, which enjoys free-market specific policies, thus offering a beneficial climate for foreign investments.
The Romanian head of Government said he was aware of the ?challenges’ brought about by the economic development and stressed Shenzhen experience ?is useful to everybody’.
‘We are aware that this extraordinary economic development raises other challenges and difficulties as well. I appreciate the way in which you think of developing the infrastructure, first and foremost, of educating the youth and those who come to work here and of the investments in the protection of the environment. The economic development is, of course, the most important at first, but without better living conditions, without better education and without protecting the environment, it is difficult in the future. We consider that this economic experience of Shenzhen’s development is useful to everybody and, by seeing how you have thought of the investments in education, in environmental policies, I am convinced Shenzhen further has a positive future’, Ponta said.
He evoked the last 30 years of the city’s history, which started from a fishermen’s village to turn into a city of over 5 million.
‘We have all heard of the extraordinary history of the city and of the extraordinary development, particularly by the economic investments and by the companies located here. It is for this reason that, during this visit, we wished to be here, in Shenzhen with all the delegation, in order to meet the local authorities and visit three of your important companies (Huawei, ZTE, China Nuclear Electric — editor’s note). We have important economic projects with all three of them and we hope the cooperation relation between Romania and these companies would develop’, he said.
The prime minister paid a visit to the central headquarters of telecom equipment and services supplier Huawei based in Shenzhen. The Romanian Huawei branch employs 380 staff, 100 of whom are Chinese.
‘For the moment, they carry out the entire maintenance for Europe from Romania and want to boost their presence’, Ponta explained.
The Romanian prime minister on Monday also visited ZTE and China E companies and he will then travel to Beijing. He is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday.
Ponta is on an Asian tour over June 26-July 3 that also took him to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.AGERPRES