Vice President Hu Sishe met with Indiana Lieutenant (Lt.) Governor Sue Ellspermann and her delegation on July 1, 2015.

Vice President Hu extended a warm welcome to Lt. Governor Ellspermann’s trade mission to China. He said that US President Obama paid a state visit to China after the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting last year. and Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit the US in September this year. The Seventh China-US Strategic & Economic Dialogue and Sixth China-US High-level Consultation on People-to-people Exchange were successfully concluded in DC. President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the US this September. All these show that the political, economic, cultural, educational and military cooperation between the two countries have been deepened. Lt. Governor Ellspermann’s Agricultural Trade Mission to China has come at a great time. Integrated development of rural and urban areas and agricultural modernization are important parts of China’s efforts to comprehensively deepen the reform. As Indiana boasts advanced agricultural technologies and rural development expertise,  a great prospect faces the State to strengthen the cooperation with Chinese counterparts in agriculture and beyond.

Lt. Governor Ellspermann thanked the CPAFFC for its strong support for her mission to China. She said that as a US top agricultural state, 83% of Indiana’s land is dedicated to farms or forests, producing high-quality corn, soybeans, pork and poultry. China is a vast newly developing consumer market ready for more choices of food and other commodities that the Indiana agriculture industry can provide. Her visit to Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shandong, Tianjin, Hebei and Beijing is an important first step in building relationships with Chinese provincial governments and business leaders, and will provide a solid foundation for the mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two sides in the future.