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China, Algeria to better traditional friendship

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-03 11:20

ALGIERS -- China and Algeria have a traditional friendship that is developing along with the time, Chinese Ambassador to Algeria Liu Yuhe told Xinhua prior to a visit to the North African country by China's top legislator Wu Bangguo.

China and Algeria have a time-honored friendship which traced back to the 1940s and the 1950s during their fight for their respective independence and for safeguarding their national sovereignty, Liu noted.

The newborn China extended help for Algeria when it was still fighting for its independence. When the Algerian interim government was formed in 1958, China immediately gave it recognition and established full diplomatic relations with Algeria, the first non-Arab country to do so.

Algeria also made significant contributions to restoring China's legitimate seat in the United Nations as one of the co-sponsors (the other being Albania) in 1971.

China and Algeria have been friends in need, said the ambassador. China began in 1963 to dispatch medical teams to Algeria, the first such destination on the African continent.

In 2003, when Algeria was hit by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake which caused major causalities and financial losses, China promptly sent medical teams to the quake-struck regions, which saved a child buried under the rubbles.

This year, after the major earthquake in China's Sichuan province in May, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sent a message of condolences to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the Algerian government donated $1 million to the quake-struck region.

China and Algeria are mutually-trusted strategic partners, Liu said. During the past 50 years since the establishment of bilateral ties, cooperation in various fields has been ever consolidating and growing, which has become an example for the South-South cooperation.

In February 2004, President Hu paid a state visit to Algeria and announced along with President Bouteflika the formation of a strategic cooperative relationship between the two countries.

In 2006, President Bouteflika attended the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Summit and paid a visit to China, during which the two countries issued a joint statement on developing their strategic cooperative relationship.

China and Algeria have conducted intensive cooperation in international affairs and are striving to make contribution to maintaining world peace and stability and achieving a win-win international cooperative pattern, Liu noted.

What's more, bilateral trade and economic cooperation have developed quickly in recent years. Bilateral trade volume in 2007 increased to $3.828 billion from $290 million in 2001. Gross trade volume in the first eight months of the year has reached $3.06 billion, a 27 percent rise year-on-year.

Now about 40 Chinese companies are registered in Algeria and nearly 30,000 management, engineering, technological and labor personnel are working in the country. Algeria has become one of China's most important overseas markets for contracted engineering projects, Liu said.

Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress, is scheduled to visit the country on November 3-6.

The visit, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Algeria, will undoubtedly further boost the traditional friendship between the two countries and peoples and deepen their mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation, Liu said.