On Mar. 21st, 2014, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the Embassy of Dominica in China held a banquet to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Dominica. Mr. Xie Yuan, Vice President of CPAFFC, Mr. Shen Zhiliang, Director-General of the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. David Xu, Charge D’affairs of the Embassy of Dominica in China, ambassadors of Jamaica, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago, diplomats from Suriname and Bahamas, and Dominican students in China have attended the banquet. Xie Yuan said in his remarks that in 2004, China and Dominica formally established the diplomatic relations. Both sides belong to the world of developing countries. Since then, Chinese and Dominican leaders have deepened their mutual trust through exchange of visits. Moreover, the two countries share fruitful cooperation on politics, economy, technology, culture and education. At the same time, people-to-people exchanges between the two sides increase steadily. He wishes a brighter future for China-Dominica relations by joint efforts from our two peoples. In his address, David Xu said, since the establishment of the diplomatic relations, the two sides have achieved numerous fruitful results in bilateral cooperation on economy, tourism and culture. He also expressed his wish for enhancing people-to-people contacts, promoting comercial exchanges and deepening bilateral ties between the two countries in the future.

On Mar. 21st, CPAFFC Vice President Hu Sishe met with Mr. Philippe Nayer, Minister-Counsellor of the Belgian Embassy in China and his wife. Vice President Hu briefed Mr. Nayer and his wife the basic status of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and China International Friendship Cities Association (CIFCA). He also informed the minister-counsellor couple about the plan of his visit to France, Germany and Belgium in next week. Vice President Hu hoped to strengthen the mutual understanding of the Chinese and European friendship organizations through this visit, so as to promote the development of friendship cities between China and Europe. During the visit the delegation will have working meetings with Belgium-China Friendship Association, Economic and Trade Committee of China and Belgium, and Liberty University of Brussels, to discuss on the possibility of developing all-around, wide-range and multi-level cooperation and exchanges. Mr. Nayer expressed that it was very welcome of the Chinese friends visiting Belgium. The correlative organizations in Belgium also wished to develop exchanges and pragmatic cooperation in fields of economy, trade, science, education, culture, diplomatic theory, city construction and etc.. As the resident-representative of Wallonia-Brussels, Mr. Nayer hoped to further strengthen the communication with the CPAFFC and CIFCA, jointly promote the exchange and cooperation for the Chinese and Belgian local governments. The both sides also reached preliminary consensus on facilitating the rector of Liberty University of Brussels to visit China and the cooperation on exchanging project of senior translators.

The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the Embassy of Tunisia in Beijing together held the reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of China-Tunisia diplomatic relations and the 58th anniversary of the Independence of Tunisia helds in Beijing on March 20, 2014. H.E Abdul’ahat Abdulrixit, Vice President of the 11th CPPCC National Committee and the President of the Chinese-African People’s Friendship Association, Mr. Zhang Ming, Vice Minister of Foreign Ministry, Mr. Feng Zuoku, Vice President of CPAFFC and other 130 friends from both home and abroad attended the reception. CPAFFC Vice President Feng Zuoku said in his speech that China and Tunisia enjoy long history of friendship. Over the past 50 years, both sides have kept very good friendly exchanges and cooperation. It’s hoped that the two countries could continue to enhance the existing friendship in the future. Tunisian Ambassador Tarek Amri expressed the thanks for China’s support in all fields in his speech. He also expressed the hopes of upgrading the bilateral relations to strategic partnership.  

Vice President Feng Zuoku met with visiting Minister of Finance of Ghana Hon. Seth Terkper and his delegation on March, 18th. Vice President Feng made a brief introduction on the recent exchanges between the CPAFFC and relevant departments of Ghana and the preparations being made for hosting the 2nd Forum on China-Africa Local Government Cooperation. He expressed wishes to make joint efforts with Ghana, filling the bilateral relations with more pragmatic and fruitful achievement. Hon. Seth Terkper expressed appreciation for CPAFFC’s efforts in promoting Ghana-China local government exchanges and bilateral trade and investment, introduced the major strategies of Ghana’s economic development, and emphasized that the economic cooperation between the two countries is of great importance. He also expressed his expectations for more investment from Chinese enterprises to Ghana. H.E. Mrs. Helen Kofi, Ambassador of Ghana to China, attended the meeting.

On March 17th, President Li Xiaolin met with Mr.  Gautam Bambawale, Joint Secretary (East Asia) of Ministry of External Affairs of India. President Li Xiaolin extended her welcome to Mr. Bambawale, and thanked the related Indian personages including Mr. Bambawale for their efforts to facilitate the establishment of the first batch of China-Indian Friendship cities.  President Li briefed the fruitful results of the exchanges after Beijing, Chengdu and Kunming established the friendship-city ties with their counterparts in India since last October. She wished the signing of the agreements on the establishment of the second lot of the friendship cities between China and India could be realized during the exchange visits of the national leaders of the two countries. At the same time，she suggested the both sides to strengthen the exchanges between the local governments, hold “Forum for China-India Governors”, “Cooperation Forum for Bangladesh-China-India Local Governments” and other series events, coordinating with the high-level visits. This year is the 60th anniversary of the declaration of Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence raised by China, India and Myanmar. A grand commemorative activity will be held in China this June. She hopes the Indian national leaders to attend the activity. Besides, this year is also the 60th anniversary of the establishment of CPAFFC, and the CPAFFC is willing to invite Dr. Kotnis’s relatives to attend the celebrating conference in this May. And it will be appreciated if the Indian Embassy can offer their assistance. Mr. Bambawale thanked President Li for finding time for the meeting from her tight schedule. He fully recognized the function that the China-India friendship cities had taken in fields of deepening the cooperation of local governments and enhancing the people’s friendship. He also extended his agreement and welcome to the suggestions President Li proposed. He wished to keep close cooperation with the CPAFFC and continuously promote the establishment of friendship-cities ties and exchanges of local government for China and Indian cities. He expressed that the Indian General Election was going to take place in this May, and the formation of the cabinet would last to this June, in that case, inviting the Indian national leaders to attend the commemorative activity in this June would be technically difficult, however, the Indian side would strive to facilitate the national attendance.

On Invitation of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), Isle of Man government, a British crown dependency, sent a delegation headed by chief minister Allan Bell to China. The delegation visited Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai from March 9 to March 15. In Beijing the delegation met with key persons from Ministry of Commerce, China Council for The Promotion of International Trade, China Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission. Vice President Li Jianping of CPAFFC met the delegation. Vice Mayor Cui Jindu of Tianjin, Vice Mayor Ai Baojun of Shanghai met the delegation and discussed the cooperation of Free Trade Zone. Co-hosted by Shanghai Federation of Industry and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank respectively, Isle of Man promoted its investment and trade advantages to the private companies, private banks and the media. Entrepreneurs from Isle of Man and the government delegation visited China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company，Tianjin Fortune Heights，Shanghai Linso Technology Co.,Ltd, Shanghai International Group, Shanghai Fosun Group, Shanghai Standard Wealth Investment Management Co.,Ltd.

On March 14th, Vice President Xie Yuan met Mr.Simon Pang, Chief Financial Officer of U.S.-China Business Council and Executive Vice President of Royal Business Bank. The two sides exchanged views on how to promote U.S.-China subnational cooperation and discussed relevant arrangements with respect to the forthcoming visit to China by Californian delegation of mayors.

On the morning of March 13th , Feng Zuoku, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) met with Hon. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, Minister of Commerce and Industry of Saudi Arabia and his delegation. Vice President Feng Zuoku welcomed Tawfiq Al-Rabiah and his group, and conveyed the greeting from President Li Xiaolin to them. He described the people-to-people friendly exchanges with Saudi Arabia developed by the CPAFFC in recent years, and reclaimed that the CPAFFC would intensify the efforts on works of friendship with Saudi Arabia, so as to further promote the friendly cooperative relations between China and Saudi Arabia in various fields including economic and trading exchanges. Hon. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah expressed that it was the first time for him to visit Beijing. Saudi Arabia paid great attention to the friendly cooperative relations with China and the important role of the CPAFFC in  furthering the friendship and cooperation between the people of the two countries. Therefore, his first official mission after arriving in Beijing was to visit the leaders of the CPAFFC. He hoped that the CPAFFC would play a positive role in encouraging Chinese enterprises to invest and run business in Saudi Arabia, and export the Saudi Arabian non-oil products to China. Meanwhile, Tawfiq Al-Rabiah also expected to cooperate with correlative departments of China to build a quality management system in order to control and ensure the quality of the products exported to Saudi Arabia from China, so as to create a better image and reputation for the Chinese Production.

United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) members from mainland China met on 14 March in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Mme Li Xiaolin, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries delivered an opening speech at the meeting

On March 12th ,China Friendship Foundation for Peace and Development (CFFPD) and Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd jointly organized the signing ceremony of Donation and Establishment of International Friendship Award – Healthy Society in Beijing. CPAFFC President Li Xiaolin， Vice President Xie Yuan, and Mr. Alex Gorsky, Chairman，Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson were present at the ceremony. President Li Xiaolin, Vice President Xie Yuan and Mr. Alex Gorsky witnessing the Signing Ceremony According to the agreement reached by the both sides, Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd. will donate RMB 2,640,000 Yuan to CFFPD to establish J&J-CFFPD International Friendship Award – Healthy Society, which will reward the Chinese and foreign individuals and groups who make outstanding contribution to the cause of medical and health in the world. Every year there will be 6 individuals and 1 group receiving the award according to the plan. The first awarding ceremony is expected to be held in this October. President Li Xiaolin and Vice president Xie Yuan had a meeting with Mr. Alex Gorsky and his delegation before the signing ceremony