Somalia-China cooperation expanding across sectors: Somali president

China

Somalia-China cooperation expanding across sectors: Somali president

2025-12-20 14:19 Last Updated At：17:27

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has reaffirmed his country's deepening ties with China, highlighting the relationship's advancement to become a strategic partnership that has produced growing cooperation across multiple fields.

In an exclusive interview with China Media Group (CMG) aired on Friday, Mohamud highlighted the evolving Somalia-China relationship, emphasizing the growing cooperation between the two nations.

Mohamud attended the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Beijing last September, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the elevation of bilateral relations to a strategic partnership.

"I met President Xi in Beijing, and we had a very good discussion on improving the relationship between our two countries and the areas of cooperation that we can [pursue]. I also met a couple of Chinese companies there, as well as Chinese authorities from different departments of China. Some of the projects and development plans that we discussed have already been implemented. There were a couple of delegations from Somalia that visited China for experience sharing, and China (presented) their development track, the historical development of China. [We] got to experience how China started from a low level until today. This is power. So that has already started. The exchange of visits is taking place," said Mohamud.

"That's a partnership, and it is strategic. It's not piecemeal, here and there. So, being strategic, it takes some time to develop, to build, and then to implement. So we are engaging. We and China, our engagement had been (disrupted) by the civil war, by the conflict here. And these are the years that China has developed the most. And we were not engaging [with] China during all these years. So now, re-engaging and renewing our approaches will take some time, but it's [something we are] working on," said the president.

Somalia and China on Tuesday marked the 65th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, vowing to elevate their mutual cooperation and pursue more productive and shared interests.

Chinese community in Madrid witnesses closer China-Spain ties

A Chinese community in Madrid has become a witness to the growing ties between China and Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is on a five-day official visit to China from Saturday to Wednesday. This visit marks Sanchez's fourth visit to China in a four-year period, and it represents another significant high-level exchange between China and Spain in a short period, following the visits by Spanish King Felipe VI and Sanchez last year.

The Usera neighborhood in southern Madrid is the heart of the Chinese community - a living example of peaceful and prosperous coexistence and cooperation, which also proves the relations between the two nations continue to develop in a deeper level.

"More than 40,000 Chinese people live in this neighborhood that has a unique and different identity where two cultures coexist peacefully and that represents what Madrid is all about - an open and welcoming city," said Almudena Maillo, Councilor for Tourism of Madrid Town Hall.

A giant 15-by-20-meter dragon is part of a new 12-million-U.S. dollar investment into the neighborhood, a spectacular stop on a 1,700-meter pedestrian route that features Chinese characters and Confucian phrases on the street, with 290 new trees and 11,000 plants, a brand new 500kg marble panda, and an iconic paifang, or gateway, reminiscent of the ones at the London and New York Chinatowns.

The project received EU funding and won an award for its urban transformation from Catedra China in February, a Spanish organization set up to bolster Spain-China ties.

"It's beautiful, really original. It just looks great, brightens up the place," said a local resident.

China's ambassador to Spain sees China-Spain relations at an all-time high.

"This is the best time as far as the relations between China and Spain are concerned. So I think that we are lucky to have a partner like Spain in Europe. We hope that the partners like Spain in Europe could be also increasing in the future time," said Yao Jing, Chinese Ambassador to Spain.