Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Thursday met with Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan, with the two sides pledging to keep promoting the Belt and Road construction.

The two sides, during the meeting, spoke highly of the current sound development momentum of China-Singapore relations, saying that in accordance with the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, they will take the opportunity of upgrading China-Singapore relations to an all-round high-quality future-oriented partnership to continue to push forward the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road.

Both sides will promote the continuous achievement of connectivity and mutually beneficial cooperation, so that it will better benefit the people of the two countries and the region.

The two sides will make sound preparations for the meeting of the bilateral cooperation mechanism at the vice-premier level, which is to be held this year, plan the next stage of cooperation and expand new areas of cooperation.

The Singaporean side highly appreciates the recent measures taken by China to facilitate people-to-people exchanges, and the two sides will speed up the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, as well as closer exchanges and cooperation in economy, trade, people-to-people exchanges, tourism and so on.

The two sides also exchanged views on a wide range of regional and international issues. They will strengthen communication and coordination, jointly promote the positive achievements of the leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation, and jointly safeguard regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.

(Cover: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L), also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan in Singapore, August 10, 2023. /Xinhua)