China vowed on Saturday to take a slew of measures to help economic and social development of some Portuguese-speaking countries in Asia and Africa, including establishment of a US$1 billion fund and more than US$200 million worth of preferential loans.

"Cooperation is in the interest of both sides," Premier Wen Jiabao said at the opening of the third Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries.

China will set up the fund between 2010 and 2013 to promote financial cooperation, Wen said. It will also provide preferential loans totaling 1.6 billion yuan (US$241.3 million) for five Portuguese-speaking countries within the forum, namely, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Timor-Leste. (Brazil and Portugal are the other two members of the forum.) China will also provide technical and equipment assistance for one cooperative agricultural project with each of the five countries, Wen said, adding that the country plans to train 1,500 officials and technicians for those developing countries.

China, the world's second largest economy, promised to provide support for 1,000 students from those five developing countries for the students to study in China for one year, according to Wen, who is on a two-day visit to the Macao Special Administrative Region.

It is his first official visit as premier.

He called for the opening of each other by China, the world's largest market in terms of population and Portuguese-speaking countries, which enjoy trade surplus as a whole with China. "We should join hands to oppose protectionism," he said.

Since 2003, when the forum was established, trade volume between China and the seven Portuguese-speaking countries had increased to US$77 billion in 2008 from about US$10 billion. In 2009, it dropped to US$62.5 billion thanks to the fallout of the global financial crisis, but surged to US$68.2 billion in the first nine months of this year, a 57 percent year-on-year growth, according to the Chinese customs.

"(The two sides) will strive to achieve a trade volume totaling US$100 billion by 2013," Wen said.

China is willing to expand imports from those Portuguese-speaking countries and gradually provide the zero-tariff treatment for most of the products imported from the five Portuguese-speaking countries in Asia and Africa, he said.

He also urged expansion of investment between the two sides. By the end of 2009, investment from Portuguese-speaking countries in China totaled US$500 million, while that from China in those countries exceeded US$1 billion, Wen said.

Lisbon officials said two of its major lenders signed deals with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China, the country's largest and fourth-largest lender by assets, respectively, to tap investment opportunities in China, according to media reports.

China resumed sovereignty over Macao in 1999 from Portugal. Wen said Macao has played a very unique and constructive role in promoting economic and trade relations between China and Portuguese-speaking countries.

(China Daily November 14, 2010)