China, ASEAN to enhance tourism cooperation to new level - Chinese vice premier

By Reuters   March 16, 2017 | 11:19 pm PT
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang on Thursday said China is willing to bring cooperation on tourism with the Philippines to a higher level.

Wang made the remarks when he was addressing an opening ceremony of the China-ASEAN Tourism Cooperation Year in Manila, the Philippines.

The Chinese vice premier said the China-ASEAN Tourism Cooperation Year is an important outcome of the China-ASEAN leaders' meeting last September.

The ASEAN countries are friendly neighbors of China with close people-to-people exchange for thousands of years, Wang said. So far, China has become the biggest source of foreign tourists for ASEAN and there are more than 2,700 flights per week between China and the ASEAN countries.

Wang pointed out that China would like to make joint efforts with the ASEAN countries to bring bilateral cooperation on tourism towards a larger scale, a wider range and a higher level.

Wang said China is willing to work together with ASEAN to facilitate travel, strengthen promotion of tourism resources, expand mutual investment in tourism, improve tourism emergency response mechanism and establish more tourism cooperation platforms.

While attending the opening ceremony, Wang presented a congratulatory message from Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Wanda Corazon Teo, Secretary of Philippines Department of Tourism, also attended the opening ceremony on Thursday, presenting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's congratulatory message.

In her speech, Teo said she expected the tourism cooperation year would promote the partnership between China and the ASEAN countries through expanding tourism cooperation, increasing investment and creating jobs.

More than 1,000 representatives from China and the ASEAN countries attended the opening ceremony on Thursday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a regional organization of ten Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

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