by Mahmoud Fouly
CAIRO, June 26 (Xinhua) -- China's incredible development since 1949 is a result of good governance and its people's hard work, an Egyptian think-tank chief has said.
"I first visited China in 1960. When I visited China in 2018, including the capital Beijing, I saw great development, massive tall buildings like those in New York City, (and) wide, clean and well-organized streets. This illustrates the level of China's development" over the past decades, Mohamed Mounir Zahran, chairman of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), told Xinhua in an interview.
Zahran's remarks comes as the Chinese are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Over the past 70 years, the Chinese leadership "has succeeded to a great extent in giving priority to economic and social development, raising the standard of living of the Chinese people," he said.
Since it implemented the reform and opening-up policy 40 years ago, China has lifted some 800 million people out of poverty, setting a goal to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020.
"Diligence" and "good governance" are keywords in China's development, Zahran said, stressing that successive Chinese governments managed to motivate the people to work hard and create a better future.
"China greatly managed to achieve such tremendous development through hard work, good governance, limiting population growth, and mobilizing the population to work for serving all the Chinese people and boosting the country's economy," he said.
Regarding China's global contributions, Zahran said China is working tirelessly to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations (UN).
"China has many global contributions including the active roles it plays in the World Trade Organization, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty," he said, adding that the country maintains sound relations with many developing countries and emerging economies based on mutual respect and reciprocity.
"China does not only sympathize with them but works practically to support them and push them forward towards development. This is shown in China's relations with African states for example, as seen in the regularly-held Forum on China-Africa Cooperation," Zahran said.
"China is a model to follow in terms of its relations with developing states," said Zahran, who as chairman of a UN Joint Inspection Unit evaluated China's relations with other developing states in 2010.
Zahran also voiced his support for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China in 2013 and described it as evidence of China's healthy relationship with countries. He said the BRI provides opportunities for cooperation for Egypt and China in massive infrastructure projects.
"I congratulate China's leadership, government and people on the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China," he concluded.
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