Athens, 5 February 2010

Mr. Kouvelis: I welcomed Mr. Zhang Zhijun, who is carrying out a tour of European countries, to Greece. Our country is his last stop on his way back to China and I was given the opportunity to welcome him and also extend an invitation to other Chinese high-ranking officials to visit our country, in continuation of the communication and exchange of visits between the President of the Hellenic Republic – who visited China in 2008 – and the Chinese President, Mr. Hu Jintao, from which both sides had positive impressions.

Our discussion touched upon the age-old relations between our two countries and the issues that unite us such as the Olympic Games – held in Athens first and then, Beijing — and, of course, our significant economic relations and the need to promote economic cooperation between our two countries.

We talked about cooperation in many areas such as shipping, trade, energy and, not least, renewable sources of energy, and we also pointed out Greece’s interest in the 2010 Shanghai Word’s Fair, to be visited by several Greek government officials and perhaps also the Prime Minister himself.

I have committed myself to visits and discussions with co-competent Chinese Ministers on issues of economic, cultural and tourism cooperation with China, which is obviously a very important and reliable partner for Greece; our cooperation with China should move forward on every level.

Mr. Z. ZHIJUN: I accepted the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister’s invitation to visit Greece for diplomatic talks between our Ministries with great pleasure.

We exchanged views on the history of our bilateral relations’ development and our future cooperation in specific sectors and reached a significant conclusion: we both agreed that there are no problems in our bilateral relations. The only challenge and task we are faced with is to make joint efforts to further deepen and enlarge our bilateral relations.

2010 is an important year in the history of our bilateral relations. It will be our pleasure to welcome the Greek leadership to the opening of Expo 2010 - Shanghai Word’s Fair. We would also like to extend our thanks to the Greek Prime Minister for his kind invitation to our Prime Minister.

I believe that the exchange of visits between high-ranking officials will further broaden mutual political trust between our two countries and bolster our economic, trade and cultural cooperation.

We regard Greece as China’s reliable friend and partner within the European Union and we believe that Greece will continue to play an active role in further developing EU-Chinese relations.

Finally, I am looking forward to my counterpart’s visit to China soon. Thank you.