China Foreign Minister Wang Yi to visit Philippines on Friday

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Manila from January 15 to 16 the Department of Foreign Affairs said Sunday.

The Wang Yi’s visit aims to boost the economic, trade, and health cooperation between China and the Philippines amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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This also reciprocates Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin’s official trip to China in October 2020, DFA said.

Specific details on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to the Philippines were not provided, but the DFA said he will hold a bilateral meeting with Locsin “to consider ways to accelerate mutually beneficial cooperation, particularly in the priority areas of trade and investments, infrastructure development and addressing the pandemic.”

“Together with their virtual meeting in July last year, the State Councilor’s visit attests to the sustained high-level engagement of the two countries,” the DFA said.

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“It also symbolizes the determination and steady progress of both sides toward gradually re-opening their societies and economies.”

On Sunday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III announced that the national government secured some 25 million doses of the  from Chinese firm Sinovac.

“We sealed the deal with Sinovac for 25 million with early 50,000 doses by February, 950,000 by March, and 2 to 3 million in succeeding months ’til December with 25 million doses. This is in addition to AstraZeneca as confirmed by Sec. Galvez,” he was quoted as saying in a report by Mai Bermudez on GMA’s “24 Oras Weekend” on Sunday.

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China Foreign Minister Wang Yi to visit Philippines on Friday

Last month, Malacañang said the Philippines’ top choice for a  is still ’s Sinovac despite the firm’s “bribery history.”

Meanwhile, another Chinese firm Sinopharm allegedly provided COVID-19 vaccines to President Rodrigo Duterte’s Presidential Security Group (PSG).

Early this month, Teresita Ang See, president of the Philippine Association of Chinese Studies revealed that up to 100 thousand  in the Philippines, mostly POGO workers, have been vaccinated with the .

It was found out that the vaccination of POGO workers in the Philippines started in November in a single batch of 200,000 doses.

Ang See stressed that the vaccine against COVID-19 that was injected into Chinese POGO workers as well as members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) came from legitimate or official channels.