Icelandic president hails China's contributions to global women's cause

Icelandic President Halla Tomasdottir on Tuesday praised China's important contributions to the global women's cause and voiced her willingness to strengthen her nation’s cooperation with China.

During an interview with China Media Group (CMG) following her attendance at the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women in Beijing, Tomasdottir acknowledged Chinese President Xi Jinping's commitments to gender equality, while emphasizing that China's voice on gender equality is significant on a global scale.

"I'm so honored to be invited to be here 30 years after the world's first female president was elected in my country and came here towards the end of her tenure. Thirty years later, I am here as the second female president of my country, Iceland. Yesterday, we had 110 or 120 countries present. We had your president, Xi Jinping, putting out not just a bold statement but bold commitments to gender equality. And I think in a world where we are facing backlash on an agenda that I think is incredibly important for the development of the world, both economically and socially, and I have high hopes that China is with the commitments that your president made yesterday. China is a big country, your voice and what you do and what you put on the agenda really matters to the rest of us," Tomasdottir said.

Tomasdottir described her Tuesday meeting with Xi as positive. She noted that they had exchanged views on important bilateral issues and engaged in discussions on major global challenges.

"We spoke mostly about geothermal and how we have trained for a long time in Iceland, for nearly four decades, Chinese engineers and geothermal capacity and how there is now a joint venture between China and Arctic Green, an Icelandic company, that is really looking to utilize geothermal, already doing it in 70 cities in China, but has the potential to do so much more. But also, I think together Iceland and China can tell a story about how a smaller country and a bigger country can work together using each other's strength," Tomasdottir said.

Icelandic president hails China's contributions to global women's cause

China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with visiting German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul in Beijing on Monday, and called on German companies to seize opportunities and deepen cooperation with Chinese partners in traditional and emerging sectors.

Wang noted that economic and trade cooperation between China and Germany has helped both sides develop industrial integration, interconnected markets, and complementary technologies, stabilizing and deepening bilateral relations, while also promoting the healthy development of China's trade and economic relations with the European Union (EU).

"We welcome German companies to seize new opportunities, consolidate cooperation in traditional sectors including machinery, automobiles, and chemicals, and tap the potential for cooperation in emerging businesses such as clean energy, intelligent manufacturing and biopharmaceuticals," said Wang.

Wang also noted that the current trend of politicizing trade and economic issue is on the rise, and global industrial and supply chains are being severely disrupted as a result. China and Germany, as well as China and the EU, should uphold free trade and safeguard the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core, Wang said.

Wadephul said Germany opposes protectionism and considers China its most important trading partner. He added that Germany wants to maintain and expand the positive momentum of cooperation.

"China is a driver of innovation and a major hub for high technology in many aspects. We are very keen to maintain exchanges with China both economically and scientifically," said Wadephul.

China and Germany are the world's second and third biggest economies. According to German data, China was once again Germany's largest trading partner in the first three quarters of this year.

China’s commerce minister meets with German FM, calling for deepening cooperation