On April 22, Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, attended and addressed the opening ceremony of the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (PSCs) in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Li said that since its inception 21 years ago, the forum has achieved fruitful results with language and culture as the bond, economic and trade cooperation as the theme and common development as the goal. Cooperation between China and PSCs has become a model of friendly collaboration between countries of different social systems, cultural backgrounds, development stages and sizes, and is a vivid example of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, he added.

China is striving to build a great modern socialist country in all respects and advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through the Chinese path to modernization, which will inject strong impetus into the global economy, he said.

China is ready to work with PSCs to upgrade economic and trade cooperation, expand collaboration in emerging areas, give full play to the role of Macao as a service platform for commercial and trade cooperation, and promote cooperation between China and PSCs to a broader scope, wider area and higher level, so as to build an open and inclusive world economy, he added.

Twenty measures were announced at the forum for the Chinese government to advance economic and trade cooperation with PSCs in the next stage, encouraging companies from PSCs to tap into the Chinese market and share the dividends of China's development.

More than 1,000 representatives from nine PSCs, namely, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, SAO Tome and Principe and Timor-Leste, as well as those from the Chinese mainland and the Macao SAR attended the event.

During his stay in Macao, Li also met with Olavo Correia,  deputy prime minister of Cape Verde, Abnildo do Nascimento D'Oliveira, vice-president of the National Assembly of SAO Tome and Principe, and Francisco Kalbuadi,  deputy prime minister of Timor-Leste.