President Heads to China for State Visit

EghtesadOnline: President Ebrahim Raisi left Tehran for Beijing on Monday evening after meeting Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

News ID: ۷۵۲۲۶۰

14 February 2023

President Ebrahim Raisi left Tehran for Beijing on Monday evening after meeting Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

In the meeting, Raisi gave the Leader a report on his working plan and the meetings he is going to hold in Beijing.

Ayatollah Khamenei expressed satisfaction with the arrangements that have been made, wishing the president success, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Raisi will visit Beijing from February 14 to 16 at the official invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

In March 2021, the foreign ministers of Iran and China signed a 25-year agreement to develop cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

The Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership had been announced in a joint statement during a visit by the Chinese president to Tehran in 2016.

The deputy head of the Iranian president’s office for political affairs has said that the efforts to carry out the comprehensive cooperation deal will be one of the objectives during Raisi’s trip to China.

He noted that the president will be accompanied by the ministers of economy, foreign affairs, agriculture, roads, industry and petroleum, as well as the governor of the Central Bank of Iran in the visit to China.

China has strengthened its position as Iran’s top trade partner in recent years. During the first ten months of the current Iranian year (which started on March 21, 2022), China has exported $12.7 billion worth of goods to Iran and its imports from Iran stood at $12.6 billion.

Speaking on television on Sunday night, Mohammad Jamshidi said that Raisi’s three-day visit to China will have both economic and politico-strategic dimensions.

He said Iran pursues extensive economic cooperation with China based on the partnership agreement in an effort to strengthen long-standing economic and political alliance between the two countries.

“During a visit by the Chinese deputy prime minister to Iran, negotiations were held in various committees and now we are ready to implement them,” he said.

“We have advanced the mechanisms for implementing the comprehensive agreement between Iran and China, which was a deal on paper at the beginning of this administration’s term. The agreement’s finalization will be followed up during this trip.”

Economic Convergence

Jamshidi also said that China’s president had invited Raisi to visit Beijing last September, during the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.

This will be the first state visit to China by an Iranian president in the past two decades, he noted.

The official also said that the Raisi administration’s strategy revolves around the policy of “economic convergence”, especially with Asian countries.

Raisi will meet Xi in Beijing, where they will oversee negotiations and the signing of cooperation documents between the delegations from the two countries.

Raisi will also participate in a joint meeting of Iranian and Chinese businessmen and economic activists. He will then meet with Iranians residing in China as well as top Chinese intellectuals.

Iran and China have enjoyed close ties in recent years, particularly after the United States reinstated sanctions on the Iranian economy in 2018 after unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement.

The landmark cooperation agreement officially documents the Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and sets the outlines of the two countries’ cooperation in political, cultural, security, defense, regional and international domains for the next 25 years.