GUYANA and China on Saturday signed several agreements aimed at strengthening bilateral relations between the two nations.

The signing took place at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre during the visit of State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge, during an address to several government officials including Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder and Junior Finance Minister, Jaipaul Sharma as well as Chinese diplomats, said that the two sides held constructive and productive discussions on a range of important issues related to their bilateral agenda.
“Minister Wang’s visit today will no doubt contribute to the strengthening and advancement of our relationship. I am confident that, through our combined efforts, it will continue grow from strength to strength, on the basis

of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation,” Minister Greenidge said.

The Chinese Foreign Minister said that the two countries have enjoyed mutual respect over the years. He said Guyana has been China’s trustworthy, longstanding partner and friend.
He said the two sides covered much ground during their bilateral cooperation agenda.
The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative two months ago. Minister Greenidge said the signing of that MoU represents yet another milestone in Guyana-China relations and according to him, “will certainly add impetus to our efforts to promote deeper cooperation and collaboration in critical areas.”

Minster Greenidge said the two sides discussed how they will move forward with the cooperation areas identified under the MoU, in order to extract practical benefits for our countries and peoples.

He said that while the MoU outlines broad areas of collaboration, such as policy coordination, enhancing connectivity, promoting trade and increased people-to-people exchanges among others, the two countries must now identify specific proposals and develop a mechanism by which projects and programmes in these areas may be proposed and evaluated at the technical level.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry has commenced discussions with other agencies in order to secure their inputs to assess their needs and to identify priority areas.

Greenidge said those agencies were represented at Saturday’s forum and he noted that government is committed to utilising this new framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as existing bilateral mechanisms, to channel support to critical sectors, namely infrastructure, agriculture, renewable energy, health and ICT inter alia, in order to bring direct benefits to our citizens.

Among the agreements signed on Saturday is a Framework Agreement to implement the Guyana National Broadband Project.

This project will see the upgrading of the network to enable an equitable delivery of service in the education, health, security, business and other sectors.

On Saturday officials and members of the media witnessed the official handing over of China’s contribution towards our hosting of the Seventeenth Session of the Committee for the Review and Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in January of 2019.

Minister Greenidge said it may be the first occasion on which the Government of China has contributed cash to “this very important undertaking.”