Chinese FM meets Lao counterpart in Yunnan

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Lao PDR Thongsavanh Phomvihane in Anning, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said China is willing to work with Laos to implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and two countries, strengthen strategic communication, and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation to continuously inject new vitality into their traditional friendship.

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Chinese FM meets Lao counterpart in Yunnan

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Chinese FM meets Lao counterpart in Yunnan

Wang said China is ready to share the benefits of its super-sized market with Laos, encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Laos, safeguard the security and stability of industrial and supply chains, and work with Laos to resist economic coercion and bullying.

China welcomes Laos' joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) family and looks forward to Laos contributing to the development of the SCO, Wang added.

Thongsavanh, who is in China for the tenth Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Foreign Ministers' Meeting, said the Lao Party and government attach great importance to developing relations with China and hope to promote the construction of a Laos-China community with a shared future to go deeper and achieve more solid progress.

Thongsavanh thanked China for supporting Laos in becoming a dialogue partner of the SCO. Laos is willing to maintain close communication and coordination with China to jointly safeguard international fairness and justice, he added.

China's outstanding aggregate social financing -- the total amount of financing to the real economy -- reached 442.12 trillion yuan (about 63.4 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2025, up 8.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

The country's aggregate social financing stood at 35.6 trillion yuan (about 5.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up by 3.34 trillion yuan (about 479 billion U.S. dollars) from the year 2024, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

According to the data, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.5 percent year on year to 340.29 trillion yuan (about 48.8 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of December.

In addition, outstanding yuan loans stood at 271.91 trillion yuan (about 39 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2025, up 6.4 percent year on year.