(Chinese Embassy, 29th September 2015)

Your Excellency Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, President of the Republic of Fiji,

Honorable Ministers, Assistant Ministers and Members of Parliament,

Excellencies and members of the Diplomatic Corps,

Chinese community and enterprises representatives,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

October 1 is China's National Day. It is with great joy that the Chinese Embassy in Fiji hosts this reception tonight to warmly celebrate the 66th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. First of all, please allow me to extend a warm welcome to all the distinguished guests present here tonight. I would like also to give my special welcome and thanks to Your Excellency President Nailatikau for honoring us with your presence, which reflects the deep and cordial friendship that exists between our two countries and peoples.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China 66 years ago, under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese people have been working hard to make the country strong and prosperous. Despite numerous difficulties and hardships, we have made spectacular achievements. Through 36 years of rapid development since adoption of reform and opening-up policy, China has made historic progress in raising social productivity and overall national strength. The livelihood of Chinese people has seen great improvement and has generally reached the level of moderate prosperity. China has become the world’s second largest economy, the largest goods trading nation, the third largest country of outbound investment. In 2014, for the first time in history, China’s GDP exceeded 10 trillion US dollars.

Since this year, against the intricate domestic and foreign economic environment, the Chinese government has continued its efforts to shift growth model, make structural adjustment and institutional innovation. The performance of the Chinese economy is stable and moving in a positive direction, with a 7% growth rate achieved in the first half of the year, which remains within a reasonable range of growth, making important contributions to the stability and development of the world economy.

At present, the Chinese people are following the strategic blueprint of comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society, comprehensively deepening reforms, comprehensively implementing the rule of law and comprehensively strengthening Party discipline, to realize the Chinese Dream, which is the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

China will stick firmly to the path of peaceful development. Not long ago, in addressing the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-fascist War, President Xi Jinping reiterated that China will never seek hegemony or expansion, and announced that China will cut the number of its troops by 300,000, which shows China’s resolve to pursue the road of peaceful development.

China is an active participant, constructor and contributor of the current international order and system. China remains committed to maintaining world peace and regional stability and has played an active role in international development cooperation to promote common development for all mankind. In his recent speeches at the United Nations, President Xi Jinping announced that China will establish a 10-year, 1 billion US dollar China-UN peace and development fund to support the UN's work and to promote multilateral cooperation. President Xi also stated that, China will take the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda as its own duty and strive for common development. For this purpose, China will set up a fund, with initial contribution of 2 billion US dollars, to support South-South cooperation and assist developing countries in implementing their post-2015 development agenda. China will also do its best to raise its investment in the least developed countries (LDCs) to 12 billion US dollars by 2030. China will exempt the debt of the outstanding intergovernmental interest-free loans due by the end of 2015 owed by the relevant LDCs, landlocked developing countries and small island developing countries.

On the issue of climate change, China is making great efforts to advance ecological civilization and promote green, low-carbon, climate resilient and sustainable development, through accelerating institutional innovation and enhancing policies and actions. China has submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to address the climate change, and decided to lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level. During President Xi’s state visit to the United States, China announced that it will make available 20 billion RMB (equivalent to about 3.1 billion US dollars) for setting up the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to support other developing countries to combat climate change. This highlights China’s role as a major responsible country.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Fiji. Over the past 40 years, China and Fiji have developed a cooperative relationship based on mutual respect, equal partnership and sincere cooperation. The bilateral relations have maintained a good momentum of development. There have been frequent exchanges between the two sides at the top and other levels. President XI Jinping and Prime Minister Bainimarama paid successful visits to each other’s countries in last November and July respectively. Leaders of both countries reached important consensus on the establishment and development of the Strategic Partnership of Mutual Respect and Common Development, which points out the direction for China-Fiji relations. With joint efforts from both sides, we have carried out practical cooperation in various fields, such as trade, culture, education, tourism and etc. which have brought tangible benefits to both our peoples. Last year, the bilateral trade volume reached 340 million US dollars, an increase of 11.9% over the previous year. 28,000 Chinese tourists visited Fiji. China has now become one of the fastest-growing source countries for Fiji’s tourism. The implementation of China-Fiji visa exemption agreement provides more facilitation for bilateral personnel exchanges. We have good reasons to believe that there will be a considerable increase of Chinese tourists visiting Fiji this year.

At present, China-Fiji relations stand at a new historical starting point, facing many new opportunities of further development. The Chinese side stands ready to work with the Fijian side to further deepen our traditional friendship, enhance mutual political trust and develop more win-win cooperation, so as to constantly enrich the content of China-Fiji strategic partnership and push the bilateral relations to a new height.

Lastly, I would like to propose a toast,

To His Excellency President of the Republic of Fiji, the Government and the People of Fiji,

To the prosperity of China and Fiji, and the happiness of our two peoples,

To the brighter future of China-Fiji relations,

Cheers!