On February 13, 2017, H. E. Mr. Wei Ruixing, Chinese Ambassador to Lithuania, met with Mr. Bronius Markauskas, newly appointed Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania. Mr. Rolandas Taraškevičius, Vice Minister of Agriculture, Mrs. Rima Živatkauskaitė, Deputy Director of International Affairs Department of State Food and Veterinary Service, and Mrs. Zhao Qiuyan, Economic and Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy, were present at the meeting.

Ambassador Wei extended his sincere congratulations to Mr. Markauskas on his new appointment as Minister of Agriculture and wished him every success during his tenure of office. "With the joint efforts of both sides, fruitful results of cooperation in agricultural sector between China and Lithuania have been yielded during the past few years", the Ambassador said. The relevant government departments of the two countries concluded protocols for export of Lithuanian agricultural products to China in 2015 and 2016 respectively, and 15 Lithuanian companies were authorized to export aquatic products and 17 companies were authorized to export dairy products to China starting from May and August last year. 20 tons of Lithuanian cheese products were shipped to China last month. "There is a great potential and bright prospect to expand and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in agricultural sector between the two countries, such as agriculture technology, food processing and resource utilization", Ambassador Wei said, and assured the Minister that the Chinese Embassy in Vilnius would work together with the Ministry of Agriculture, State Food and Veterinary Service and other relevant institutions to make new and greater progress in pragmatic cooperation, so as to bring tangible benefits to the two countries and the two peoples.

Minister Markauskas thanked Ambassador Wei for his congratulations, and expressed appreciation to the Chinese Government for its support and assistance in facilitating the export of Lithuanian agricultural products to China. "Lithuania attaches great importance to and has strong interest in multi-field cooperation with China in agriculture. Lithuania, which is a green country with high quality agricultural products, will make the best use of the mechanism of China and Central and Eastern European Countries Cooperation, the platform of China International Agriculture Fair and so on to further strengthen the bilateral corporation in agricultural sector", the Minister said, and expressed the aspiration to host China-CEECs Agriculture Ministers' Meeting of 2018.