Caption: Secretary General Tuiloma Neroni Slade and Chinese Special Envoy to the China – Pacific Islands Forum Dialogue, Ambassador Li Qiangmin officially launch the Pacific Islands Trade & Invest office in Beijing, China.
The rebranding of the Pacific Islands Trade and Invest (PT&I) Office in Beijing was officially launched earlier this week by Tuiloma Neroni Slade, the Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Under the new brand, the PT&I Office in Beijing joins the network of Offices that the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has in Auckland, Sydney and Tokyo, including a desk in Geneva, to promote trade, investment and tourism to the benefit of the Pacific islands.
“Our initiative to rebrand the Beijing Office to align it with the full Pacific Islands Trade & Invest network of offices will assist in ensuring that the common services available throughout these offices are also available to the clients and customers of the Beijing Office. It will allow the other offices to also benefit from the work that the Beijing Office is doing,” Mr Slade stated during the launch of rebranding. “This rebranding will assist in increasing the visibility of the work that the PT&I network of offices is doing for the Pacific islands businesses,” Mr Slade added.
H.E. Ambassador Li Qiangmin, China’s Special Envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum Dialogue represented the Government of the People’s Republic of China at the launch.
“China and the Pacific enjoy strong economic complementarities and broad prospects for cooperation with China’s advantage in capital, technology and markets and the Pacific Island Countries’ abundant resources in tourism, agriculture, fisheries and minerals,” Ambassador Li stated. “China always tries its best to make concrete contributions to the economic and social development of the PICs,” Ambassador Li added.
“The Forum Trade Office has made unremitting efforts to facilitate exchanges and cooperation in such fields as trade, investment and tourism between China and PICs, and plays an important role in deepening our mutual understanding and promoting mutual benefit,” Ambassador Li said.
A rejuvenated website in Chinese language is part of the rebranded PT&I Beijing Office. The website contains information about the Pacific Islands on trade, tourism and investment opportunities and focuses on the needs of the Chinese speaking clients.
Pacific Island Ambassadors in Beijing, and Private Sector representatives working with the businesses in the Pacific were among the guests who attended the launch at the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel in Beijing.
“I want to thank the People’s Republic of China for its continued support and commitment to the Pacific Islands Forum and to the countries of our region through its substantive programme of development assistance, including people-to-people exchanges. These contribute substantially to the advancement of capacities of Pacific governments, private sector and the communities at large primarily in the areas of infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, tourism and fisheries,” Mr Slade said.
The Secretary General was on an official visit to Beijing, at the invitation of the Government of the People’s Republic of China. The Secretary General met with State Councilor H.E. Yang Jiechi and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Wang Yi, and other Ministers and high ranking Officials during his visit.
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