China, CEE countries vow to boost practical cooperation

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar in Belgrade, Serbia, on Dec. 16, 2014. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

China and six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries on Tuesday agreed to promote cooperation in extensive areas ranging from infrastructure to energy.[Special coverage]

The consensus was reached when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met here separately with his counterparts from Slovenia, Latvia, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Romania ahead of the third China-CEE Leaders' Meeting.

In the meeting with his Slovenian counterpart, Miro Cerar, Li said the smooth development of China-Slovenia relations and their strong economic complementarity have created a broad prospect for practical cooperation.

China, he said, stands ready to encourage its enterprises to actively take part in the development of Slovenia's Koper port as well as Slovenia's infrastructure construction and nuclear power plant upgrading.

Meanwhile, China is also ready to expand tourism cooperation with the CEE country, added the Chinese premier.

Cerar said Slovenia is willing to expand cooperation with China in such areas as infrastructure construction, tourism and investment.

He said his country is willing to develop the port of Koper into a gateway for Chinese commodities to Europe and increase exports to China at the same time.