Your Excellency Ambassador Bakhtari,
Your Excellency Ambassador Le Dung,
Excellencies and colleagues,
I would like, in the first place, to express our warm congratulations to you Ambassador Bakhtari for the assumption of the chairmanship of the Asia-Pacific Group. In the meantime I would also like to express our deep appreciation to Ambassador Le Dung for the fruitful work he has done as the Chair of the APG since June 2020.
Vienna is a major platform for global governance, and there is a bigger and greater role for Vienna’s multilateral diplomacy. Faced with challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the APG, as the united front of the regional countries for unity and strength, will play an even more important role in upholding multilateralism and improving global governance system through its effective participation in wide-ranging items from peaceful uses of nuclear energy to non-proliferation, drug-control to anti-transnational-crimes, industrial sustainable development to peaceful uses of outer space, as well as from anti-corruption to cyber issues.
Over the past 9 months, the APG has, under the leadership of Ambassador Le Dung of Viet Nam, overcome the difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, actively participated in the multilateral affairs in Vienna, contributed greatly to maintaining the continuity of the important work of Vienna-based multilateral international organizations, and carried out fruitful work throughout various processes related to UNOV, IAEA, UNIDO, CTBTO, etc.
There will be an expanding important items on our agenda in the coming months. They include, inter alia, the Kyoto Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Special Session of the General Assembly against Corruption, the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21 Century, the 65th Session of IAEA General Conference, as well as the 19th Session of the UNIDO General Conference. We are confident that under the leadership of Afghanistan, our Group will make active contributions to continuing to safeguard the common interests of the Asia-Pacific countries as a whole.
Excellencies and colleagues,
Asia-Pacific is an important force for world peace and stability. China is profoundly proud to be a member in this big family. I would like to take this opportunity to assure the Chair of the Group of China’s full support to maintain our common interest and through our intensified coordination on all these issues. China will continue to strengthen and deepen its collaboration with other Asia-Pacific countries, under the current circumstances, to preserve multilateralism, face up to the common challenges and uphold our collective interests.
In conclusion, I wish you all a very fruitful Year of Ox.
Thank you.