Your Excellency Dr. Hifikepunye Pohamba, Former President of the Republic of Namibia,

Your Excellency Susitjie Mbumba, Wife of Vice President of the Republic of Namibia,

Your Honorable Speaker Prof.Peter Katjavivi,

Your Honorable Governor Laura Mcleod-Katjirua,

Your Honorable Minister Utoni Nujoma,

Your Honorable Minister Lipumbu Shiimi,

Your Honorable Minister Yvonne Dausab,

Honorable Deputy Ministers, Executive Directors, Deputy Executive Directors and all the senior officials of the Namibian Government,

Your Worship Deputy Mayor Joseph Uapingene,

My fellow Chinese,

Friends from the media,

All the distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening.

I am so honored to have so many distinguished guests with us this evening.

It’s an exciting moment to welcome the Year of the Dragon and farewell the Year of the Rabbit. As the Spring Festival is approaching, the Chinese Embassy has enormous pleasure in hosting this Spring Festival Temple Fair themed "Embracing the Chinese Year", to celebrate the most important traditional festival of the Chinese nation, with our fellow Chinese and Namibian friends from all walks of life.

First, I would like to extend my New Year greetings to all Chinese compatriots and our Namibian friends. I wish you all a happy Spring Festival and an auspicious year of the Dragon.

I thank all our distinguished guests, in particular, His Excellency Dr. Hifikepunye Pohamba, Former President of the Republic of Namibia. What a great honor that Former President Pohamba kindly joins us this evening.

Former President Pohamba is a highly respected leader who has made historic contributions to the development of China-Namibia relations. His kind presence has graced our event and made this Spring Festival especially memorable. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s thank again His Excellency former President Pohamba with our warmest applause and wish His Excellency good health.

My special thanks also go to Her Excellency Madam Susitjie Mbumba. Thank you Your Excellency Madam Mbumba. I am so honored with your gracious presence.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Spring Festival marks the first day of the Chinese lunar year, which has been celebrated by the Chinese people for more than 4000 years, originating from the activities of offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors when the lunar year began during the Yin and Shang Dynasties. The Spring Festival, a tradition lasting thousands of years, is a time of bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new, a time of embracing joy and good fortune, and a time for the most important family reunion of the year.

Every time when Spring Festival comes around, family members always try their best to return home for reunion no matter how far away they are. I hope our Namibian friends can understand how important this festival is to the Chinese people and how grateful we are that you are celebrating it with us. We appreciate your friendship.

The Temple Fair is an important form of celebration of Spring Festival. The event hosted by us today is a very simplified version of the Temple Fair, but we have still done our best in preparing plenty of festive cuisine and wonderful art and folk performances. We hope to create a warm festive atmosphere for the Chinese community and also provide an opportunity for our Namibian friends to experience the Chinese traditional culture.

I want to take this opportunity to tell our fellow Chinese, wherever you are, General Secretary Xi Jinping and the CPC Central Committee always care about you, and people of the motherland are concerned about you all the time. I and all my colleagues of the Embassy wish all of you more success in all your undertakings, and great happiness in your families in the year ahead.

In the meantime, we hope our fellow Chinese will continue to be envoys of friendship and fully demonstrate Chinese people’s friendly sentiments towards the Namibian people in your engagement with every circle of the Namibian society and make constant contributions to the social and economic development of your new home Namibia.

To our Namibian friends, I want to say, I have fully felt the warmth, friendliness and kindness of Namibian people in the past 12 months since I assumed my posting here. In my view, our two peoples share a lot of common points in terms of our values. We all like making friends, we all cherish friendship, and we are always ready to help each other. I hope and believe that our two peoples will be good friends forever.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to take this opportunity to  report to you that the Chinese economy is making steady progress after the pandemics and will continue to provide strong impetus for the world economy. Last year, China has achieved an estimated GDP growth of around 5.2 percent and become a major trading partner of over 140 countries and regions. I am glad to note that China has for the first time become the largest automobile exporter in the world.

Looking at the broader picture, we are now advancing Chinese modernization on all fronts through high-quality development. Delivering modernization to more than 1.4 billion people will be a remarkable achievement in human history, one that will provide continuous impetus to the development of China and the wider world. I fully believe in the even more promising future of China-Namibia trade and economic cooperation as our two economies continue to grow.

Distinguished guests, dragon is an ancient totem of the Chinese nation, symbolizing vitality, prosperity and success. In China, when we say somebody has got the “dragon's luck”, that means this person is extremely lucky. So in conclusion, I wish all our distinguished guests “dragon's luck” in the year of the dragon. May the China-Namibia friendship last forever, and our two countries and its people enjoy peace and prosperity. 

Thank you.