Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla Shahid, on Saturday, held discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhang Lizhong via video conference regarding a joint COVID-19 response.
Pleasure to hold extensive discussions with @AmbassadorZhang of China today. We covered broad range of issue of mutual interest. #Maldives is strong supporter of #China’s territorial integrity. He assured me of China’s interest in working with #Maldives Govt on #Covid-19 recovery pic.twitter.com/4ladh2c5UL— Abdulla Shahid (@abdulla_shahid) May 23, 2020
Discussions focused on ongoing bilateral issues, facilitation of people to people exchanges and project cooperation in addition to the establishment of a bilateral coordination mechanism for pandemic prevention and control.
During the meeting, Ambassador Zhang reiterated China's enthusiasm to support Maldives' efforts to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed Khaleel, Foreign Secretary Abdhul Ghafoor Mohamed, Secretary Multilateral Dr Ali Naseer Mohamed and Joint Secretary Mariyam Seenaa as well as other top officials from the foreign ministry and the chinese embassy participated in the video conference.
With this development, Maldives currently records 1,313 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 1,182 active cases. The country has reported four fatalities and a total of 128 recoveries till date.
WHO has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 5.4 million people and claimed over 342,200 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, 2.25 million people have recovered.