China News Agency, Manila, December 11 (Reporter Guan Xiangdong) Huang Xilian, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines, as a special guest on the 10th, participated in the DOST Report online interview program organized by the Philippine Ministry of Science and Technology, focusing on the China-Philippines science and technology partnership to play a role in China-Philippines relations The role of the Philippine government, how to promote cooperation between the two countries’ science and technology departments, and the relevant technologies that China has helped the Philippines develop and are widely used in the Philippines. It has enhanced the friendship between the two peoples and deepened mutual understanding.
Huang Xilian said that China-Philippines scientific and technological cooperation is an important part of the partnership between the two countries in the new era.
China and the Philippines formally established diplomatic relations in 1975. In 1978, the two sides signed an intergovernmental science and technology cooperation agreement and established a joint committee mechanism for Sino-Philippine intergovernmental science and technology cooperation.
The China-Philippines Joint Committee on Science and Technology Cooperation has held 15 meetings so far and supported 252 cooperation projects.
In February of this year, Huang Xi and Minister De La Panna formally launched the 2021 China-Philippines Science and Technology Cooperation Joint Research Project. China-Philippines science and technology cooperation has played an important role in promoting and linking the well-being and friendship between the two peoples.
Huang Xilian introduced that scientific and technological cooperation has helped the people of the two countries get rid of poverty.
Academician Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice” in China, visited the Philippines nearly 30 times during his lifetime and devoted his life to China-Philippines agricultural cooperation.
After more than 20 years of construction, the China-Philippines Agricultural Technology Center has become a demonstration project of agricultural cooperation between the two countries. It has 4 hybrid rice demonstration sites and a cumulative demonstration area of 509 hectares.
The center has introduced more than 120 Chinese hybrid rice varieties and cultivated 20 new hybrid rice combinations in the Philippines. The commercial promotion area is 226,500 hectares, directly and indirectly benefiting more than 134,000 farmers, and boosting grain income by 308 million kilograms, which is equivalent to Each Filipino added about 3 kilograms of food.
The Agricultural Technology Center also provided more than 15,000 technical trainings for Philippine professional technicians, local villagers and farmer technicians.
For this reason, some Filipino friends said that Filipinos cannot forget China with every bite of rice.
Huang Xilian said that scientific and technological cooperation has shortened the distance between the two peoples.
Dito Telecom (DITO), which involves China Telecom, plans to invest US$5 billion in the Philippines, which is expected to create more than 30,000 jobs.
Currently, DITO telecommunications services are officially commercialized in more than 100 major cities in the Philippines, with 2.3 million online users.
Social software such as WeChat allows the people of the two countries to realize instant communication and exchange of feelings.
E-commerce platforms such as Lazada, which cooperated with China's Alibaba, have enriched the shopping carts of Filipinos.
The development of cold chain and shipping technology allows Chinese people to taste fresh fruits from the Philippines for the first time.
Through scientific and technological cooperation, the relationship between the Chinese and Filipino people has deepened and the heart-to-heart distance has also become closer.
Huang Xilian said that he is very pleased to see that China-Philippines science and technology cooperation projects are widely used in the Philippines.
For example, aquaculture, bamboo planting, sericulture development, rubber research and promotion, etc.; Huawei, Fiberhome, ZTE and other communication companies also focus on new 5G technologies, cooperate with local universities and scientific research institutions in the Philippines to jointly cultivate scientific and technological talents, and research and plan to build joint experiments. Laboratory; BGI and other biopharmaceutical companies have provided the Philippines with new coronavirus testing laboratories and provided technical support. Chinese vaccine companies are planning to cooperate with the Philippines in vaccine research and development, clinical testing, etc.; Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, etc. Chinese Internet companies have increased their attention and investment in the Philippine big data, cloud computing, and digital economy fields, and provided technical and financial support to Philippine partners.
Huang Xilian emphasized that learning knows no borders and innovation is endless.
No country can become an independent innovation center. International scientific and technological cooperation is the general trend, and scientific and technological achievements should benefit all mankind.
As an important force in global scientific and technological innovation and a major country in intellectual property rights, China is willing, as always, to uphold the spirit of openness and tolerance and share advanced science and technology with the Philippines.
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