On August 24, Beijing hosted a
meeting of the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Tigran
Sargsyan with the first Vice Premier of the State Council of the People's
Republic of China Zhang Gaoli.
The visit took place at the
invitation of the Chinese party.
At the start of the meeting,
Zhang Gaoli thanked Tigran Sargsyan for coming and an opportunity to discuss
the prospects for development of relations between the PRC and the EAEU: "We highly appreciate the enormous
contribution that you, as the Prime Minister of Armenia, made in the
development of Sino-Armenian relations. And we are grateful for your activities
aimed at development of relations between the PRC and the EAEU.”
Tigran Sargsyan thanked Zhang
Gaoli for the warm welcome and noted the importance of discussion of the
prospects for development of relations between the PRC and the Eurasian
Economic Union. The Chairman of the Board, inter alia, said: "Despite the fact that the trading bloc
of the EEC and the Ministry of Commerce of China are already actively
negotiating on the conclusion of a trade and economic agreement, my visit and
our meeting is intended to consolidate the negotiating process and give a new
impetus for it. We would like to keep
our negotiations at an accelerated pace.”
In turn, Zhang Gaoli said that
now the world was experiencing profound changes, and the world economy was
recovering very slowly. "In these
circumstances, the Chinese leadership attaches great importance to cooperation
with the EAEU. China builds good relationships with all the member states of
the EAEU," he stressed.
Tigran Sargsyan agreed that
the changes in the world occurred very quickly, a new architecture of global
trade was being formed that China and the EAEU had to actively promote cooperation
not to be outside of the global trends.
China is one of the key
economic partners of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. Currently,
work is under way on forming a broad economic partnership on the basis of the
EAEA and the Chinese initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB).
"I know that you oversee the Chinese initiatives and the project
for development of a new Silk Road, conjunction with which is one of the
priorities in the development strategy of the Eurasian Economic Union,” the EEC Board Chairman said.
Tigran Sargsyan stressed that
the EAEU shared the approach of China in respect of formation of an open
economic architecture without a political component, oriented on business and
reducing barriers.
Zhang Gaoli said that the
nature of modern trading blocs often considered the primacy of regulations,
rules of a single country. "But the
world is changing, and conjunction of the EAEU and the SREB is a process aimed
at integrating the interests of all the conjunction parties," the
First Vice Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China stressed.
The EEC Board Chairman
expressed the conviction that the focus on the conjunction of the two projects
was a testament to the desire of the Union countries to create a harmonious
space for mutually beneficial cooperation.
At the suggestion of Zhang
Gaoli, the parties agreed on establishment of a data bank on the joint projects
of China with the Member States of the EAEU. The Chinese party noted the
important role of the Eurasian Economic Commission in promoting the projects of
mutual interests. The Chinese party, according to Zhang Gaoli, if necessary,
will apply to the EEC for support during the implementation of mutually
beneficial projects, and this is a good basis for institutional cooperation.
Tigran Sargsyan and Zhang
Gaoli agreed that they would meet periodically to discuss the development of
relations and support the responsible authorities in finding optimal solutions.