Chinese President Xi Jinping will host the Summit of China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) in Beijing on Tuesday and make a keynote speech, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced.

Cooperation between China and CEECs has become closer in multiple areas and Xi has expounded his views on developing China-CEECs relations on different occasions.

The following are some highlights of his recent words.

In a congratulatory message to Polish President Andrzej Duda last August, Xi said he is ready to work with Duda to grasp the opportunities of the joint construction of the Belt and Road as well as cooperation between China and CEECs so as to promote bilateral relations to new levels and bring benefits to both countries and peoples.

In a telephone conversation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held in May 2020, Xi said he looks forward to meeting with Orban at an early date after the pandemic, so as to help lift the China-Hungary comprehensive strategic partnership as well as cooperation between China and CEECs to higher levels.

The Chinese president told Czech President Milos Zeman in a telephone conversation in April 2020 that China is ready to share its information and experience on epidemic control and prevention with the Czech side via bilateral channels and the mechanism for cooperation between China and CEECs, among others.

Congratulating Zoran Milanovic on his assumption as Croatia's president in February 2020, Xi said that Croatia and China enjoy strong political mutual trust, fruitful results in joint Belt and Road construction and positive cooperation within the framework of cooperation between China and CEECs.

In November 2019, during his talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Xi said that the China-CEECs cooperation mechanism enriches the meaning of the China-European Union comprehensive strategic partnership, and China is willing to work with Greece to consolidate the cooperation mechanism and jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade to achieve all-win results.