Chinese president calls on media to help push ahead friendship between peoples of both lands

President Xi Jinping attended the first ever China-Latin America Media Summit, held in Santiago on Tuesday, and urged media professionals on both sides to work closely together for better collaboration and cooperation.

Accompanied by his Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet, Xi spoke to representatives from more than 100 mainstream media outlets from China and Latin American and Caribbean countries.

"The success of this first ever summit is a breakthrough in the history of professional exchanges between Chinese and Latin American media," said Xi, adding media cooperation and communication were important ingredients in the China-Latin America relationship.

"Media on both sides can play an important role in inheriting and pushing forward the course of China-Latin America friendship," Xi said.

Media in China and Latin America should consolidate and expand existing projects and join efforts to increase authority and power of media's influence, Xi said.

"A more vivid image of China and Latin America then could be unfolded in front the world," he said.

He urged media professionals to be resolved and adopt down-to-earth approaches to facilitate China-Latin America friendly cooperation.

The media should carry out innovative collaborations and construct mutually beneficial cooperative models and lift the existing teamwork to new heights, Xi said.

Huang Kunming, executive deputy director of the Central Publicity Department, also urged media circles in China and Latin America to work together and keep contributing wisdom and power to push forward China-Latin American relations into a new era.

In recent years, President Xi Jinping has visited Latin America three times, had frequent meetings and close contact with Latin American and Caribbean leaders at major international conferences and occasions and reached extensive consensus on a range of common concern issues, said Huang.

Xi last week started his state visit to Ecuador, Peru and Chile and attended the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Summit.

China and Latin America could not have achieved such good relations today without the efforts of their media, which have paid more attention and reported more intensively on each other in recent years, Huang said.

China has announced it will build a China-Latin America media exchange center, and will invite Latin American journalists to work and study in China. Meanwhile, China over the next 5 years will help train 500 media practitioners from Latin America to prepare a regional media talent pool.

junechang@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 11/23/2016 page7)