On July 27, 2015, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks in Beijing with Foreign Minister George Vella of Malta, who was in China for an official visit.

Wang Yi expressed that the China-Malta relations are based on mutual respect, mutual understanding, mutual support and mutual trust. China cherishes the traditional friendship between the two countries and is willing to, together with Malta, accelerate the development of the China-Malta relations in the new era in the direction of inheriting traditional friendship, deepening political mutual trust, expanding practical cooperation and strengthening communication and coordination. He hopes that the two sides will establish a medium-term steering committee for cooperation planning as soon as possible to expand practical cooperation in areas such as energy, infrastructure construction, civil aviation, finance, innovation, science and technology and tourism.

Wang Yi expressed that the 17th China-EU Summit achieved rich results. China hopes to see a prosperous Europe, a united European Union and a strong euro and is willing to work with the EU to constantly advance the four major partnerships of peace, growth, reform and civilization. China hopes that Malta will further play a positive role in the EU to help boost the healthy and stable development of the China-EU relations.

George Vella expressed that the Malta-China relations have developed rapidly and gradually become mature since the establishment of the diplomatic relations over 40 years ago. Malta always bears in mind the selfless assistance from China. The successive Maltese governments are highly consistent in developing the Malta-China relations and Malta hopes to continuously deepen political mutual trust, promote economic and trade exchanges and enhance people-to-people and cultural contacts with China. Malta will take over the rotating presidency of the EU in the first half of 2017 and is willing to give priority to developing the EU-China relations so as to promote the further development of the EU-China relations.

The two sides also had an in-depth exchange of opinions on international and regional topics of common interest.