China exchanges increase

BARBADOS EXPORTS to China have risen by 80 per cent each year for the last six years.
In addition, figures for the first ten months of this year have practically doubled last year’s total. This was stated by the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Barbados, Wei Qiang, yesterday when he addressed the seminar on China and Barbados’ engagement entitled Engaging China: Options, Opportunities and Strategies, which was hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Qiang said that many things were happening in terms of bilateral trade between the two countries. However, he noted that since the first resident ambassador of Barbados was posted in China two years ago bilateral relations between the two countries had been changed for the better.
The Chinese Ambassador also talked about prospects for further cooperation between the two countries but in the area of tourism. Qiang said that with 60 million Chinese international travellers a year, China was positioned to be one of the top exporters of tourists worldwide. This, he said, presented a number of possibilities for entrepreneurs or policymakers.
Ambassador of Barbados to the People’s Republic of China, Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, explained that China did not see the Barbados market as too small to matter and therefore he queried how much longer Barbados would wait to sell its goods and services on the Chinese market just as China was doing on the Barbados market.
Sandiford said that China was one of the pre-eminent countries with which Barbados should engage in cooperation, in friendly relations, and in trade.
The reasons he advanced were that China had expressed a willingness to import goods and services from Barbados and to export goods and services to Barbados, as well as to make investments in Barbados. 
 
Above, Dr Anthony Fisher, director of external affairs of the University of the West Indies, Chief Executive Officer and Publisher of the Nation Publishing Company Ltd, Vivian-Anne Gittens, Premier Managers’ CEO Aidan Rogers, and China’s ambassador to Barbados Wei Qiang in discussion at yesterday’s seminar entitled Engaging China.  (Picture by Nigel Browne.)