CRI听力:China, CELAC to Map out Co-op Plan over Next 5 Years

President Xi Jinping says the sessions in Beijing will produce a new plan to chart the path of China-CELAC cooperation over the next five years.

The collaboration plan is expected to define key areas and specific measures of cooperation from 2015 to 2019.

The document is expected to cover a wide range of sectors, including political security, trade, investment, finance, energy, and people-to-people exchanges.

Xi Jinping, in delivering the opening speech to the China-CELAC session, says China wants to double two-way trade to 500 billion US dollars with the region over the next 10 years.

"Let's make this meeting a new starting point, seize the new opportunity of collective cooperation, and work toward a new phase of bilateral development between China and CELAC."

Trade between China and the region has grown from 10-billion dollars in 2000 to 257 billion in 2013.

This has been driven largely by Chinese demand for commodities such as crude oil and soybeans.

At the same time, Xi Jinping says the Chinese government wants to increase direct investment in the region to 250 billion dollars over the next five years.

CELAC groups all South American countries, as well as certain Caribbean states, plus Mexico.

The two-day meetings in Beijing have drawn dozens of high-ranking officials from CELAC nations, including the Presidents of Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, as well as the Prime Minister of the Bahamas.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa says the cooperation between China and CELAC countries should help push forward reforms in the current international order.

"The relation between China and our region should be based on mutual benefit and win-win cooperation as well as mutual respect so that we can together promote and reform international order. The current order is not only unjust but in many examples immoral. Some arbitrary organisations are not fair and have been used as political tools for a long period of time in the past."

Correa is on-record saying he wants to work with China on reforming the United Nations.
He also notes China has massive cash resources, while CELAC nations hae a lot of natural and human resources China needs.

Ahead of the two-day session, Ecuador managed to secure more than 7.5-billion-dollar worth of lines-of-credit and loans from China.

Last summer, China extended a 20 billion dollar loan to the region for infrastructure development, on top of another 10-billion in preferential loans.

For CRI, I'm Yin Xiuqi.