Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Addis Ababa last week to cement Ethiopia-China strategic partnerships for 2019 and pave way for continued bilateral relations in 2020.
During his meeting with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa, Wang Yi said: “Beijing’s friendship with Addis Ababa has withstood the tests of unstable international situations and is unbreakable.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed described the visit as a “testimony to the point that China is a true friend of Ethiopian and African people”.
The visit comes days after Ethiopia’s first satellite, ETRSS-1, was successfully launched into space from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China on December 20.
The satellite was developed by 21 Ethiopian engineers in collaboration with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) and the Chinese government who provided $6m funding for the project.
The satellite, which was launched from the Taiyuan space in northern China, will be used for weather forecast and crop monitoring. The launch makes Ethiopia the eleventh African country to have a satellite into space. Egypt was the first in 1998.
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