China and the Philippines have confirmed cooperation programs worth 3.7 billion U.S. dollars between the two countries, a senior Chinese official said Monday.
A Philippine cabinet delegation, led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, began a two-day visit to China Monday to implement agreements reached between President Xi Jinping and his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte last October.
"The cooperation projects, which are the first batch on improving people's living standards, now only need a series of bank-related procedures," China's Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said after Monday's meeting in Beijing.
Gao said he expected an agreement on the implementation of the deals to be signed by the end of the visit, which would help ensure smooth, efficient, fair and transparent cooperation between the two countries in the fields of infrastructure, transport, highways, telecommunications, railways, irrigation and living standards.
A six-year development plan for the two countries was nearly finalized and was also expected to be signed next month in Manila, Gao said.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, meeting with the Philippine delegation on Monday, said the two countries were friendly neighbors with great potential for economic and trade cooperation.
He also called for accelerating the drafting of a bilateral economic and trade cooperation plan and earnest efforts to implement priority cooperation programs.
