On 27 October 2020, ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) held an exchange event on ASEAN-China Vaccine Friend Cooperation. Officials from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China (MFA), Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Center of Disease Control and Prevention and representatives of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. attended the meeting. Mr. Raja Dato’ Nushirwan Zainal Abidin, Ambassador of Malaysia to China, and diplomats from ASEAN Member States (AMS) embassies joined the event.
Ms. Wang Hongliu, Director of General Affairs and Coordination Division of ACC hosted the meeting and stated that ACC would continue to play its bridging role to push forward anti-epidemic cooperation between ASEAN and China for greater development of China-ASEAN relations that would benefit the people in the region.
Ms. Dong Shuhui, Counsellor of Department of Asian Affairs of MFA said that since the outbreak of COVID-19, AMS and China have joined hands in the fight against the pandemic and rendered each other strong support. China wishes to further advance the regional anti-pandemic efforts through the platform of Vaccine Friend Cooperation by providing vaccines as a public good to benefit more people in the world. Representative from Department of International Organizations and Conferences of MFA indicated that vaccine is a powerful weapon to battle the epidemic. China is willing to promote relevant international cooperation and AMS are welcome to participate in the project of COVAX.
Mr. Yin Zundong, Director of National Immunization Program in Chinese Center of Disease Control and Prevention, briefed on the overall situation of COVID-19 in the world, the latest development of vaccine research, and features of Chinese vaccines such as the variety, safety and therapeutic effects . Representative from Ministry of Science and Technology of China gave an overview of their work on guiding domestic vaccine research and promoting international cooperation. He emphasized that Chinese vaccines are major contributions to the world public health undertaking and China is willing to strengthen solidarity and cooperation with AMS.
Ms. Yang Guang, General manager of Sinovac Biotech (Hong Kong) Ltd. gave a brief introduction about the company, its development history and its efforts in the R&D and production of COVID-19 vaccines. Sinovac stands ready to work closely together with AMS governments and enterprises so as to contain the epidemic quickly and effectively.
During the meeting, participants exchanged views on the issues of common concern among AMS such as anti-epidemic cooperation, vaccine research and development, production and procurement, etc. On behalf of AMS, Ambassador Nushirwan expressed appreciation to ACC for organizing this event. He stressed that in the face of COVID-19, vaccine cooperation is of utmost political importance for all AMS including Malaysia. ASEAN is looking forward to reinforcing collaboration with China on vaccines and other public health areas, creating more channels to obtain reliable, safe and effective vaccines and promoting exchanges and training for healthcare institutes, enterprises, and medical staff, so as to bring the epidemic under control and recover the economy at an early date.
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