Vice Minister Chen Xiaohua met with Mr. Dejan ?idan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food of Slovenia, in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia on July 4, 2016. The two sides reached a number of consensuses on enhancing China-Slovenia agricultural exchanges and cooperation.
Vice Minister Chen pointed out that in recent years the China-Slovenia agricultural cooperation mechanism has been improved and the multilateral and bilateral agricultural cooperation has witnessed constant development. To further enhance pragmatic bilateral cooperation, Vice Minister Chen put forward a four-point proposal: first, make good use of the bilateral cooperation mechanism to deepen agricultural cooperation; second, actively develop multilateral agricultural exchanges under the framework of the "16+1" cooperation mechanism; third, take measures to boost agricultural trade and investment cooperation; fourth, dispatch experts to each other and increase personnel exchanges to enhance mutual understanding.
Mr. Dejan ?idan fully agreed with Chen on his proposal and expressed his willingness to make joint efforts with China to promote China-Slovenia agricultural cooperation in a down-to-earth manner.
After the meeting, Vice Minister Chen and State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food of Slovenia Tanja Strni?a co-chaired the first meeting of China-Slovenia agricultural cooperation working group. The two sides discussed specific cooperation plans of food safety, agro-product processing, animal and plant inspection and quarantine, and agricultural S&T, among others.