Mao Weiming, deputy secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and governor of the People's Government of Hunan Province, met in Changsha with a delegation of senior cadres of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party on July 10.

The delegation was led by Siheng Homsombath, vice secretary of the Saravan Provincial Party Committee and president of the People's Congress of Saravan Province.

On July 10, Hunan Governor Mao Weiming met with Saravan President Siheng Homsombath in Changsha.

Li Dianxun, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and executive vice governor of the People's Government of Hunan Province, and Qu Hai, secretary general of the People's Government of Hunan Province, attended.

Governor Mao welcomed the guests and briefed them on the economic and social development of Hunan Province. He noted that Hunan and Laos are geographically close and emotionally connected to each other. The province has been comprehensively implementing the spirit of President Xi Jinping's important instructions on promoting the construction of the China-Laos community with a shared future.

Based on the sound foundation of friendship and cooperation between the two sides, Hunan has actively carried out high-level visits, promoted economic and trade exchanges, and achieved fruitful results. In 2022, the import and export volume between Hunan and Laos reached 1.024 billion CNY, an increase of 218.5% year on year. Hunan has opened two direct flights to Laos, Changsha-Vientiane and Changsha-Luang Prabang. The province has facilitated the operation of 57 Huaihua-Laos international freight trains, with a cargo value of about 750 million CNY. Moreover, around 100,000 people from Hunan have started up businesses or found employment in Laos.

He expected the two sides to take this visit as an opportunity to actively integrate into the "Belt and Road" cooperation; make good use of the new opportunities brought by the RCEP; and, earnestly implement the memorandum of cooperation (MoC) on the "one railway and two industrial parks" project. Hunan will continue to deepen high-level exchanges; maintain close contacts with sister cities; accelerate construction projects; and, strengthen collaboration in agriculture, education, culture and tourism, new media, and other fields, to contribute to consolidating the traditional friendship between China and Laos and building a shared future with a high-standard quality of life in the China-Laos community.

The meeting.

Siheng Homsombath thanked Hunan for its long-term selfless assistance to Laos. He remarked that Laos and China are linked by a shared landscape of towering mountains and winding rivers and the two live as good neighbors. Both sides share profound tradition of friendship, forming an unbreakable community with a shared future where all people rise and fall together.

Photos taken by Liu Shangwen.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Yu Jiangjiang

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn