Innovation cooperation

Switzerland is a nation with a strong innovative spirit and China is also promoting innovation as a national strategy, said Wang. In 2016, China and Switzerland established an innovative strategic partnership, the first of its kind.

"The two governments signed a new MoU on setting up a dialogue platform between the two countries on innovation strategies, which would work as a new cooperative mechanism to supervise and coordinate the progress of innovation cooperation in all fields," said the foreign minister.

He said the two leaders also agreed to strengthen the alignment of "Made in China 2025" and "Switzerland and Industry 4.0" strategies and work on closer innovative cooperation between research institutes, entrepreneurs, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Open economy

Wang said the free trade agreement (FTA) between China and Switzerland, which entered into force in 2014 as the first between China and a European nation, has become the locomotive to increase quality and efficiency of pragmatic cooperation.

During Xi's visit, the two sides agreed to start joint research on upgrading the FTA and to begin talks on it as early as possible.

The two sides are committed to expanding cooperations in trade, investment, finance, insurance, environmental protection and customs, while jointly promoting the Belt and Road Initiative through multilateral platforms like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said Wang.

People-to-people exchanges

Wang said the peoples of China and Switzerland have a long history of friendly exchanges, even though their respective countries are geographically apart.

"President Xi and his wife have greatly consolidated the existing friendship between the two peoples, through interactions with all walks of life of Swiss society, sharing beautiful tales of Sino-Swiss traditional exchanges, taking family photos with the Davos snow peaks as the background and announcing the launch of the "2017 Sino-Swiss Tourism Year," said Wang.

Wang said that Xi made a visit to only one nation, but aimed at the whole world with emphasis on both bilateral and multilateral ties, and dedication to both peace and development at the same time, thus completing the opening chapter of China's 2017 diplomacy.