On October 25, Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan and Spanish Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism Maroto jointly hosted the 28th China-Spain Joint Economic and Industrial Cooperation Committee in Beijing. The two sides exchanged ideas on bilateral economic and trade relations, the Belt and Road cooperation, jointly opposing bilateralism and protectionism, China International import Expo (CIIE) and the third-party market cooperation.
Zhong Shan said that President Xi Jinping often stressed that China will not close its door and will only open it even wider. This will bring more development opportunities for Spain and the world. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Spain, thus the holding of this joint economic and industrial cooperation committee is at a special time and of great significance. In recent years, the leaders of high profile from China and Spain have visited each other frequently, and the political mutual trust has been constantly enhanced. The economic and trade cooperation has achieved fruitful results. The scale of Spain's exports to China has gradually expanded, and the field of two-way investment has been continuously expanded. The third-party cooperation has been actively promoted, and cooperation in tourism and other service industries has been good. Spain is China’s sixth largest trading partner in the EU, and China is Spain's sixth largest trading partner in the world and the largest trading partner outside the EU. The bilateral trade volume in January-September 2018 was US$25.35 billion. Among these, China’s export was US$18.7 billion, up 10.3% year on year, and the import was US$6.61 billion, up 13.8% year on year.
Maroto also said that China has always been a priority development partner of Spain and is the first country she visited since she took office. Spain highly appreciates the series of measures proposed by President Xi Jinping to further expand opening up, and believes that the Chinese market will be more open in the future. Spanish government attaches great importance to the Belt and Road cooperation and is willing to strengthen cooperation in the fields of investment, infrastructure, third-party market, finance, tourism and agricultural products.
The two sides also exchanged ideas on specific issues of their own concern.
