Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister,

Distinguished Guests,

Dear Ambassadors,

Ladies, Gentlemen and Friends:

 

Good evening! We are gathered here today to celebrate the 66th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On behalf of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Armenia, I would like to extend my warmest welcome to all the distinguished guests and friends.

 

The founding of the People's Republic of China was officially proclaimed on October 1, 1949. Over the past 66 years, especially during the past over 30 years since China's undertaking reform and opening-up, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, Chinese people have worked hard and made impressive achievements in economic development and social progress. China has emerged as the world's second largest economy, the largest merchandise trading nation, the third largest investor as foreign direct investment, and largest trade partner of more than 120 countries and regions. China has got rid of poverty and backwardness to enable 1.3 billion Chinese people to live a fairly comfortable life as a whole. It is no exaggeration to say that this shall be called a development miracle in human history. The CPC collective leadership with Xi Jinping as general secretary is leading the Chinese people to make unremitting efforts to achieve the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in accordance with the “four-pronged comprehensive strategy”, which includes such objectives as: to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society, to comprehensively deepen reforms, to comprehensively implement the rule of law, and to comprehensively strengthen Party discipline.

 

The world also benefits from China’s rapid development. China's economy maintained a healthy development and the optimization and upgrading of economic structure is accelerating, against the background that the world economy lacks the impetus for the growth. The growth rate of China’s GDP was 7% in the first half of this year, which ranked the forefront of the world's major economies and contributed about 30% of global GDP growth.

 

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression as well as the World Anti-Fascist War. China was the main battlefield in the east in the World Anti-Fascist War. Chinese people made tremendous sacrifice in this war during which China suffered over 35 million casualties both of the military and civilian in the life-and-death war between justice and evil, light and darkness. We’ll never forget that thousands of Armenian soldiers, as part of Soviet Red Army troops, fight against the Japanese invaders in northeast China and made a contribution to the victory of the Chinese people. The Chinese Government held a grand gathering and military parade to commemorate the victory of this war on September 3, 2015, with the main aim to remind people to keep in mind the painful history, learn from history, look forward to the future, and cherish the hard-won peace in the world. China will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development and continue to be fully committed to maintaining world peace and stability.

 

2015 is an important year for the in-depth development of bilateral relationship between China and Armenia. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan paid a historical state visit to China in this March and signed the “Joint Declaration on Friendly Cooperation and Further Development and Enhancement of Relations between the Republic of Armenia and People's Republic of China” with President of China Xi Jinping. A few days ago, Prime Minister of Armenia Mr. Hovik Abrahamyan paid a working visit to China and attended the Eurasian Economic Forum, which will further promote the bilateral practical cooperation. We are delighted to see the level of bilateral cooperation between our two countries has been upgrading. According to the statistics provided by Armenian side, the volume of bilateral trade between our two countries reached 270 million USD from January to July of this year. China has been the second largest trade partner of Armenia, and the export of Armenia to China has increased by nearly 30%. Both sides are committed to implement the cooperation consensus reached between our leaders to consolidate political mutual trust, deepen practical cooperation, expand cultural exchanges, and push forward the bilateral friendly cooperation up to a new level. The Chinese government is promoting the implementation of the initiative of jointly building "the Silk Road Economic Belt". We believe this significant initiative will provide new historical opportunities for all-round friendly cooperation between China and Armenia.

 

The friends from all cycles of life who attend tonight's reception are the witnesses to the development and progress of bilateral relationship between China and Armenia. You have actively promoted the bilateral friendly cooperation and rendered assistance to the work of the Embassy of China to Armenia for the past many years. Here, I would kindly take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude.

 

Now, I would like to propose a toast,

To the 66th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China,

To national prosperity and people's happiness of China and Armenia,

To the deep friendship between the people of China and Armenia,

To the health of all honored guests,

Cheers!

 

  -   Politics