Earlier, Premier Li delivered a speech at the opening of the Business Forum of the 7th China-Central and Eastern Europe summit. Feng Yilei has more.

In the past 6 years, China has been strengthening cooperation with its Central and Eastern European partners under the "16+1" framework. With the 16+1 cooperation in place, agreements and multilateral cooperation center on trade, as well as cultural and educational exchanges. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang says that China is encouraged by the fact that business relations between China and CEE have come a long way amid global economic and financial woes.

LI KEQIANG CHINESE PREMIER "We have enjoyed a strong momentum of fairly fast growth of business relations at a higher pace than our cooperation with some other regions. Additionally, there has been a surge in people to people exchanges. We have a broad space for further cooperation in economic trade and people to people engagement."

As trade unilateralism and protectionism continue to rise, Premier Li emphasizes that China believes in multilateralism and is determined to safeguard the free trading system with its European partners. He says that China will stay on the path of reform and opening up - which is essential to the steady growth of the Chinese economy and achievements that the country has made.

LI KEQIANG CHINESE PREMIER "We will better match the roles of the government and the market to ensure that the market plays its decisive role in allocating resources. We also need to follow market principles and business rules in our cooperation between the two sides. We will widen market access to foreign investors and lower the overall import tariffs."

Li adds that all these efforts will create a more favorable environment for cooperation between China and CEE, and boost joint development. And the platform is open to other interested parties. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov also notes that cooperation serves the interests of all the parties involved - not only the 16+1 countries, and in a wider context, Europe and the world.