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Remarks of H.E. Mr. Lin Songtian Ambassador of the People's Republic of China at the Handing-Over Ceremony of the New Parliament Building

2010-06-10

Rt. Hon. Henry Chimunthu Banda, Speaker of Parliament,

Hon. Khumbo Kachali, Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure,

Hon. Prof. Etta Elizabeth Banda, Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Hon. Prof. Peter Mwanza, Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development,

Hon. Members of Parliament Present,

Senior Government Officials,

Dear Press Friends,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

Today, I feel very excited and extremely happy to sign the Handover Certificate of the New Parliament Building on behalf of my government, which means that with the concerted efforts of our two sides, the New Parliament Building has been completed and officially handed over to the Malawian Government. At this auspicious moment, I wish to extend, on behalf of the Chinese Government and people, my warmest congratulations to the Malawian Government and people.

The New Parliament Building is the first grant project of China that has been completed, and indeed is the fruit of China-Malawi win-win cooperation and a symbol of China-Malawi friendship. According to the statistics from the Chinese contractor, about 200 Chinese engineers and workers, together with average over 300 Malawian engineers and workers every day, had participated in the construction of the New Parliament Building. In order to make sure that the New Parliament Building would be completed and ready for the new budget session of Parliament this year to be held in this new building, the engineers and workers from China and Malawi had been working day and night, and completed all the construction work within one year plus ten days, which is almost five months ahead of the contracted schedule. This is the result of our joint venture and a miracle in the construction history of Malawi created by the joint efforts of our two governments and peoples. This is also an important demonstration of the traditional culture of hard working, unity and commitment, and friendly cooperation, which is shared by our two peoples.

Therefore, I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciations to the Chinese contractor, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group, all the engineers and workers from both China and Malawi who had participated in the construction of the New Parliament Building, for the wonderful and commendable jobs they had done, and for the great contributions they have made to the development and promotion of China-Malawi friendship. I also wish to sincerely thank the Malawian Government and people for the precious understanding, supports and close cooperation they had given to the Chinese side during the construction process.

Your Right Honorable, Ladies and Gentlemen,

A friend in need is a friend in deed. The construction of the New Parliament Building is a vivid demonstration of the policy and principle of China in carrying out win-win cooperation with African countries, that is Always Be True In Word and Resolute In Deed. China always keeps our words to our friends and has always exhausted our efforts within our best capacity to help friends.

It is well known that before the commencement of the project construction, the current global financial and economic crisis had broken out and had brought seriously negative impacts on China’s economic development. However, China has never withdrawn our commitments to Malawi or taken it as an excuse to delay to implement our promises to Malawi. Instead, China has taken every special measure as we can to speed up the project construction so as to just ensure that this is China’s commitment and policy to Malawi and this continent as well.

Your Right Honorable, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nowadays, there are some rumors and arguments in some western countries which claim that China comes to Africa just to exploit its mineral resources and energy for her rapid economic development and never concerns about the development of democracy and human rights in this continent.

Seeing is believing. The facts here in Malawi are strong enough to clarify those rumors loudly and clearly. People just come here and open their eyes, of course, without any political prejudice, they will prove themselves that the rumors are indeed the rumors and totally against the facts. In the past two years, China has helped and are ready to help Malawi build a series of landmark projects, but has never touched any mineral resources in Malawi and could not expect the water of Lake Malawi become oil in one day.

China strongly believes that to concern about and support democracy and human rights can not depend on lips work, but concrete actions. In fact, the construction of the New Parliament Building is a good example to show concrete action of China to concern about and support the development of democracy and human rights in Malawi and African continent as well. From now on, the Honorable MPs of Malawi will be able to discuss issues of national development and welfare of the people and execute their democratic rights endowed by the people in this decent and honorable building. And this is the first time in the history of Malawi for the Parliament to have such a decent and honorable building and have all its departments under one roof. Moreover, the constructions and maintenance of such a huge building has created and will create hundreds of jobs for the Malawian people. This is a practical way to concern about and support democracy and human rights.

Your Right Honorable, Ladies and Gentlemen,

When we are celebrating this auspicious moment, we cannot and shall not forget that it is H.E. President Mutharika and H.E. President Hu Jintao who together made such a far-sighted and resolute decision to normalize diplomatic relations between China and Malawi, which has made such mutually beneficial cooperation possible between our two countries.

Since then on, with personal and direct concern from the two Heads of States, the China-Malawi relationship, which is based on the principle of mutual respect, mutual equality and win-win cooperation, has developed so smoothly and rapidly with tangible and visible fruits. Recently, H.E. President Mutharika and the First Lady visited China and attended the opening ceremony of Shanghai World Expo. During the visit, the two Heads of States had drafted a blueprint for the future development of China-Malawi relations. I strongly believe that with our concerted efforts, the China-Malawi relations will yield more and more fruits, and become more beneficial to the national development and peoples of our two countries.

Your Right Honorable, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The completion and handover of the New Parliament Building is the first landmark project of our win-win cooperation. Within next two to three years, the projects of Karonga-Chitipa Road, the International Conference Center and Five-Stars Hotel, Malawi University of Science and Technology and the National Stadium of Malawi will be commenced or completed one by one, which will play vital roles in supporting Malawi achieve self-sustainable national development.

Finally, Let me reaffirm that as a sincere friend and a reliable development partner of Malawi, China will continue to carry out win-win cooperation with Malawi, especially in the four priority areas of agriculture, education and human resources development, health and medical service and infrastructure development. It is my sincere hope that with our joint efforts, the China and Malawi friendly relationship will grow from strength to strength and become a good model of China-Africa cooperation

Thank you for your attention.

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