Wen Desheng

 

At the invitation of the Senate of Malaysia and the Senate of Cambodia, a delegation of Chinese Association for International Understanding (CAFIU) headed by Mr. Li Guixian, Vice-Chairman of the Chinese People¡¯s Political Consultative Conference and President of CAFIU paid a friendly visit to the two countries from December 13 to 23, 2006. The visit has enhanced the China-Malaysia and China-Cambodia friendship and mutual understanding.

 

During the visit in Malaysia, the delegation had meetings with Mr. Abdul Hamid Pawanteh, President of the Senate, and Mr. Woon Foon Meng, Vice-President of the Senate. Mr. Hamid said the friendly relationship between Malaysia and China enjoyed a long history and cooperation between the two countries in political, economic, trade and cultural sectors were expanding. Mr. Woon said, frequent exchanges of high-level visits in recent years had promoted the development of the bilateral relations. Malaysia and China had maintained gratifying cooperation in personnel exchanges, tourism and agriculture. Many Malaysian parliament members spoke highly of China¡¯s economic and social development and hoped to further the exchanges and cooperation in such areas as trade and economy, science and technology, agriculture, tourism, culture and education. Leading officials of Economic Planning Unit briefed the delegation on Malaysia¡¯s economic and social development. Apart from Kuala Lumpur, The delegation also visited Melaka and Penang. Mr. Mohd Ali Rustam, Chief Minister of Melaka State and Mr. Koh Tsu Koon, Chief Minister of Penang met the delegation.   

 

Through the visit in Malaysia, we felt that Malaysia had a lot of good experience of economic and social development that we could learn from. For example, in developing economy, Malaysia had paid attention to maintaining coordinated growth and low inflation, controlling unemployment and developing agriculture, education and public health. They attached importance to reducing poverty, promoting balanced development at the localities, taking into consideration of interests of all ethnic groups to share the benefits of economic development. Meanwhile, Malaysia had also actively promoted consultation and cooperation among political parties and ethnic groups in order to realize social harmony.

 

During our visit in Cambodia, Mr. Chea Sim, President of the Senate and Mr. Heng Samrin, Chairman of Cambodian National Assembly met with the delegation respectively. They all wished that Cambodia would continue to develop the Cambodia-China friendship fostered by leaders of previous generations of our two countries, enhance bilateral cooperation and learn from each other in all areas. Prime Minister Hun Sen said that bilateral exchanges in all areas at various levels had further increased since the new century started, which helped not only promote the friendly cooperative relationship between Cambodia and China, but also the stability and development in the region. He said that China¡¯s economic development had benefited the neighboring countries and the regions. Mr. Keat Chhon, Minister of State Affairs and concurrently Minister of Economy and Finance gave a briefing on Cambodia¡¯s economic and social development. Mr. Tep Ngorn£¬the acting President of the Senate accompanied the delegation to visit Siem Reap province.

 

Through the visit, we got to know that in the last few years, Cambodia had paid attention to maintaining national peace and stability, strengthened the basic position of agriculture, expanded processing industry and export of agricultural produce. Achievements had been made in improving the living standard of the farmers and alleviating poverty. At the same time, Cambodia tried to improve investment environment by actively exploring to formulate related laws and regulations, intensifying efforts for infrastructure construction, such as enlarging construction of roads, bridges power stations and etc. Employment and income had also been improved through development of tourism. The Cambodia side hoped that our two countries would further strengthen cooperation in regional and international affairs, as well as exchanges between the two parliaments and cooperation in tourism and agriculture.