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Profile: Austrian President Heinz Fischer

Xinhua, March 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

Austrian President Heinz Fischer will pay a state visit to China on March 26-30 at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The following is a brief introduction of the Austrian president:

Fischer was born on Oct. 9, 1938 in the town of Graz, Austria. He entered the University of Vienna in 1956 to study law and politics and graduated with a Ph.D. in law in 1961.

Fischer was the chairman of the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party from 1975 to 1983. He served as science and research minister in the government from 1983 to 1987 and was elected parliamentary president in 1990. He was re-elected three times before he became the second president of the parliament in 2002.

Fischer was elected as Austria's president in April 2004 and re-elected in April 2010.

He was elected the vice-president of the Social Democratic Party in 1979. Between 1992 and 2004, he was also a vice-president of the European Socialist Party.

Fischer attached great importance to Austria's ties with China and visited China many times. He paid his first state visit to China as Austria's president in January 2010.

Fischer is married and has a son and a daughter. Endi