Tánaiste's Chinese New Year greetings and St Patrick's Day China visit preview

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Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney's Greeting to celebrate the Chinese New Year

Thursday, 15 February 2018

 I'd like to wish everybody a Happy Chinese New Year. This is going to be the Year of the Dog, and it's also going to be a really good year for Ireland and China relations.

I'm looking forward to visiting China again, this time for St. Patrick's Day, visiting the big cities as you'd expect - Shanghai, Beijing, and we're also visiting Hong Kong along the way. And I'm really looking forward to that. I have very fond memories of trade missions to China in recent years.

We are countries that are a long way apart geographically, and we're very different in terms of size and scale, but we're countries that are getting closer together too, and we see that in terms of our trade figures, in terms of the political relationships and friendships that we've built, and I look forward to building on all of that this year when I visit China.

So good luck to everybody this evening; the Irish Government and I are wishing everybody here a very Happy New Year.

副总理新春贺词及圣帕特里克节中国之行预告

爱尔兰副总理兼外交贸易部长西蒙·科文尼的春节贺词

2018年2月15日

    我衷心祝愿每个人都能度过一个欢乐的中国新年。2018年是中国农历狗年，也将是爱中两国关系发展的好年份。

    我期待在圣帕特里克节期间再次访问中国，我将到访你们都能想到的中国名城北京和上海。我们也会顺道去香港。近年来，我曾多次率团访华，每次中国之行都给我留下了愉快而难忘的记忆。所以，我对下个月去中国真的非常期待。

    在地理上，爱尔兰和中国相距甚远；在面积和人口规模上，两国也很悬殊。但是，我们这两个国家的关系越来越紧密。我们可以看到：爱中双边贸易、政治关系和双方共同培育的友好情谊都在扩大和加深。我期待今年再次访华之时，能够在已有基础上进一步加深双方的友谊和联系。

    我谨代表爱尔兰政府，并以我个人的名义，祝愿生活在爱尔兰的每一个人农历新年快乐！祝大家狗年吉祥旺运！

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