President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Wednesday received a commitment from Chinese President Xi Jinping to address the trade deficit gap as China readies to accept high-value Philippine agricultural products.

During a bilateral meeting with President Xi on Wednesday, President Marcos said China has become the Philippines’ largest trading partner but noted an imbalance between exports and imports.

“I’m very glad that we are in the process of finalizing the rules and regulations for the import by China of fruits from the Philippines,” President Marcos said.

“And I believe that very soon now, we will be able to see the different fruits… the high-quality agricultural products coming from the Philippines start to come into China to balance the trade situation that we have between China and the Philippines.”

Aside from trade, the President said he looks forward to welcoming once again Chinese friends to visit the Philippines once the COVID-19 situation in China becomes more manageable.

China had approximately 1.6 million tourists who came to the Philippines before the pandemic, the chief executive said, noting tourism’s transformative power was the reason why his administration made it a top priority.

The two countries, he said, must also focus on cultural and educational exchanges as well as people-to-people relationships, if they hope to achieve a higher level of closeness and cooperation.

China and the Philippines should also work for the transfer of technology in both directions particularly in addressing future health emergencies.

“And other pandemic lessons that we have to learn is that our health care system must be made more robust, made more efficient, and made more effective. And this is another one of the great priorities that we are going to have to attend to,” the President said. #