Xi, Bill Gates Discuss Expansion Of Chinese-Gates Foundation Cooperation - State Media

BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2023) Chinese President Xi Jinping held a meeting with Bill Gates on Friday and announced China's readiness to boost further cooperation with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a variety of areas including innovation, fighting global poverty, health care and agriculture, as well as to provide support for developing countries, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

"China is ready to continue strengthening cooperation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in appropriate fields, and providing support and assistance depending on its own capabilities to other developing countries," Xi was quoted as saying by the broadcaster.

The Chinese leader expressed hope that friendly Chinese-US ties would remain, while Gates noted that the foundation's cooperation with China had been fruitful and achieved significant progress in recent years.

Gates said that his foundation was set to continue reinforcing the partnership with China in such areas as innovation, global poverty alleviation, public health care, medical drugs research and development, agriculture, as well as to introduce successful experience and technologies in developing countries.

On Wednesday, Gates tweeted that he had arrived in China for the first time since 2019 to meet with Gates Foundation partners and discuss issues related to global health and development challenges. Xi met with the US billionaire for the first time in several years.

In January 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $5 million to China to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, the foundation said that it had resumed its cooperation with Beijing's municipal government and Tsinghua University in the field of health care. In particular, the foundation will provide the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute with $50 million over the next five years.