Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba held a phone conversation with the State Counselor, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Wang Yi.

Dmytro Kuleba expressed gratitude for the Chinese Government's assistance to the Ukrainian Government in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year and asked his Chinese counterpart to facilitate the export of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine to Ukraine as soon as possible.

“We consider cooperation on vaccines as not just the intergovernmental agreement, but as the cooperation between the peoples of China and Ukraine,” he underlined.

Wang Yi gave assurances to Dmytro Kuleba of the Chinese government's readiness to continue supporting Ukraine in the fight against COVID-19 until the pandemic is completely overcome.

Chinese Minister reaffirmed China’s consistent support for Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, as well as the choice by Ukrainian people of the state's development course.

In turn, Ukrainian Foreign Minister assured his counterpart of the firm unchanged position of Ukraine on “One China Policy”.

Both parties positively noted that despite COVID-19 pandemic, last year trade turnover between Ukraine and China increased by 20% and reached a record 15 billion US dollars.

Bilateral trade development and people-to-people contacts were identified by the Ministers as key priorities of relations between Ukraine and China for 2021.

Dmytro Kuleba and Wang Yi discussed plans for Ukrainian-Chinese contacts for 2021 at all levels, including the top level. In this context, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine informed his Chinese counterpart about the events marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence.

“This year Ukraine and China mark 10 years of the strategic partnership proclamation, and Ukraine celebrates its 30th year of independence. I sincerely hope that on this basis Ukraine and China will manage to present great positive results in the bilateral relations,” said Dmytro Kuleba.

Ministers reaffirmed their mutual invitation to pay working visits when the circumstances and limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic allow.

Background

This is the second telephone conversation between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the People's Republic of China. The previous talk took place in April 2020.

Last year China took the leading position among Ukraine's trading partners, for the second year in a row. For 11 months of 2020, trade turnover between Ukraine and China amounted to $13.7 billion, while exports from Ukraine to China amounted to $6.3 billion (+92.4% compared to the same period in 2019) and imports from China to Ukraine reached $7.4 billion (–12.1%).

On 23 December 2020, the Governments of Ukraine and the People's Republic of China held the fourth meeting of the Cooperation Commission online.