Hon. Prof. Peter Mwanza, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security,

Mr. Ju Wenbin, Managing Director of Malawi Cotton Company,

Senior Government Officials and Senior Chiefs present,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mulibwanji.

It gives me great pleasure to attend the Best Cotton Farmer Grand Prize Presentation Ceremony. First of all, please allow me to extend my warm congratulations to the 26 best cotton farmers.

I also wish to thank the Malawi Cotton Company for setting up this Best Cotton Farmer Grand Prize. This prize will be a great encouragement to the cotton farmers of Malawi, and I hope in the future, more cotton farmers will receive this prize with their efforts.

As a joint venture of China-Africa Development Fund and Qingdao Ruichang Cotton Corporation, the Malawi Cotton Company has invested a lot in the cotton industry of Malawi in past two years. Last year, the company subsidized more than 150,000 cotton farmers,and created more than 1300 jobs for local people. With their efforts, the processed cotton of Malawi has been exported to China in a large amount, which is a positive step towards H.E. President Bingu wa Mutharika's great vision of making Malawi a predominantly producing and exporting country. I am also happy to know that, its oil pressing plant will be put into operation before the next cotton harvest season. By then, Malawi will save a lot of forex by producing cooking oil locally.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Agriculture plays an important role in the national development of Malawi. Under the wise leadership of H.E. President Mutharika, the Malawian Government has put agriculture and food security as its "priority within priorities". And by implementing the Agriculture Input Subsidy Program, Malawi has achieved food security for five consecutive years, and has become a shining model of food security in Africa and the world.

China is a large agricultural country. We have successfully solved the problem of providing enough food to 1.3 billion people, which brings us a lot of experiences in realizing food security. China has a huge market, advanced agricultural technologies and investment capital, while Malawi has abundant natural resources for agricultural development. The agricultural cooperation between China and Malawi has great potential and complementarities.

I wish to take this opportunity to reaffirm that the Chinese Government will continue to strengthen the agricultural cooperation with Malawi in various forms.

First, we will build an agricultural technology demonstration center in Malawi within the framework of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. We will send Chinese agricultural experts and technicians to Malawi, to share the experiences on how to apply modern agricultural technology with local farmers.

Second, we will invite more Malawian agricultural technicians to attend training programs or seminars in China, to exchanges views and experiences with their Chinese counterparts.

Third, we will continue to encourage Chinese enterprise to invest in Malawi, the field of agricultural products processing in particular, to increase the adding value of Malawian agricultural products.

Fourth, we will further open Chinese market to Malawian agricultural products by granting unilateral preferential tariff treatment.

I am full of confidence that, with these methods, the agricultural cooperation between China and Malawi will be further expanded and deepened, and will bring benefits to the peoples of our two countries.

Thank you. Zikomo.