Distinguished Minister of Culture and Tourism of Turkey Mr. Mehmet Nuri Ersoy , Dear business leaders from both China and Turkey, Dear colleagues from the Embassy of China in Turkey.

Today, I am honored to witness this online signing ceremony of Wechat pay project launched in Turkey. First of all, let me express my warmest congratulations to the companies that attributed to this significant achievement, including ICBC, Tecent, IGA and Unifree. It is your vision, innovation and coordination that has made this happen, and will help further enhancing Sino-Turkey economic cooperation in various ways.

As we all know, Turkey is among the countries that support China’s Belt and Road Initiative at the very early stage. China has attached great importance to developing a friendly and win-win relationship with Turkey. During recently years, both sides have been cooperating well in promoting economic, cultural and educational exchanges under both the Belt and Road Initiative and Turkey’s Middle Corridor strategy.

In the first half of 2020, amid the global overall economic downturn, the total trade volume between China and Turkey reached 10.68 billion US dollars, increased by 8.9% year-on year ; China’s investment to Turkey is 18.37 million US dollars, increased by 177.1% year-on-year. By the end of June, China's cumulative investment in Turkey amounted 2.67 billion US dollars. Last year, the Chinese tourists to Turkey reached 426 thousand, increased by 8.2% year-on-year. In the first half of this year, China ranks No.3 in the list of citizens buying households in Turkey.

From the above figures, we can see great potential in Sino-Turkey cooperation. In post-coronavirus era, we are facing a lot of new challenges. But as our old Chinese saying goes, challenges and opportunities are just like the two sides of a coin. We believe that the future belongs to those who are willing to and capable of learning, adapting, innovation and cooperation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out, “the Chinese economy is a sea, not a pond.” “Storms can overturn a pond, but never a sea.” As the world’s second largest economy, with its great resilience and vitality，the Chinese economy has gradually returned to normal after successfully overcome the Covid-19 shock. China’s GDP increased by 3.2% in the second quarter of this year, which has brought confidence and hope to the world economy.

At the same time, we are happy to see that, with the help of stimulus fiscal and financial policies, the Turkish economic data has also improved significantly since its resumption of work and production. China will firmly adhere to the principle of open, mutual beneficiary and win-win cooperation with all those friendly countries including Turkey. We hope that the Turkey government could continue to improve the business friendly environment so as to attract more investments and enterprises. We believe that, with our joint efforts, we can surely bring our bilateral economic, cultural and tourism cooperation to a new level. The Wechat Pay project today is just a very good example of this.

Finally, I wish the Wechat Pay project a great success, and wish all the guests present today good health and happy life. Thank you all!