WEF 2024: Swiss president welcomes Chinese premier

Viola Amherd welcomes Li Qiang to Switzerland at Zurich Airport © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Switzerland on Sunday for a visit lasting several days. Defence Minister Viola Amherd, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, received the high-ranking state guest on the tarmac at Zurich Airport in the early afternoon.

Switzerland gave the Chinese guest an exceptional welcome. It is rare for a Swiss president to meet a foreign head of government at the airport. Li Qiang is the highest-ranking Chinese government representative in Switzerland since President Xi Jinping’s visit in 2017.

Li Qiang wants to meet the government in Bern on Monday. He is to be officially received with military honours at the Lohn estate near Bern. Talks between the Chinese and Swiss delegations will take place during the visit. Improving economic relations with China is likely to take centre stage.

+ Swiss government reconsiders stance on China

China has been Switzerland’s most important trading partner in Asia since 2010 and is Switzerland’s third most important trading partner after the EU and the US.

The Chinese Premier, who has only been in office since March, is also taking part in this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, which begins on Monday. China is considered an ally of Russia, and the West hopes to use Beijing to influence Moscow in the Ukraine war, for example.

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