Vice Minister Zhang Taolin met with Mr. Peter Walsh, Minister for Agriculture and Food Security of the State of Victoria, Australia in Beijing on September 25, 2014. The two sides exchanged views on stepping up agricultural cooperation in the future.
Zhang noted that over recent years, China and Australia have gained encouraging achievements in agricultural cooperation, providing a platform for enhancing agricultural partnership between China and the State of Victoria. Zhang pointed out that being established, the Sino-Australian Institute of Food & Environment(SAiFE), will play a significant role in upgrading agricultural S&T collaboration between the two countries.
At the meeting, he also put forward a four-point proposal to boost bilateral agricultural ties: first, to deepen agricultural cooperation following the China-Australia Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation; second, to strengthen agricultural S&T collaboration; third, to intensify cooperation in agri-product quality & safety; and fourth, to facilitate the cooperation between agricultural research institutes and universities between the two countries.
Mr. Walsh said that the State of Victoria highly values the agricultural cooperation with China. He fully agreed with Zhang on his above proposal, and expressed that the State of Victoria is keen to advance agricultural S&T collaboration, maintain close ties with agricultural institutes, universities and businesses of China, and promote bilateral cooperation to a new height.