On Oct 27, Deng Xiuming, executive vice-president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China, met with judicial delegations from the Independent State of Samoa and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, led respectively by Chief Justice of Samoa Satiu Simativa Perese and Vice-President of the First Instance Court of Ethiopia Tesfaye Niway Engidashet.

He received the two groups at the SPC headquarters in Beijing, after they had attended the Maritime Silk Road International Forum on Judicial Cooperation held in Quanzhou, East China's Fujian province.   

Deng said that Samoa is China’s good friend and partner in the Pacific region, and courts of the two countries have enjoyed deep traditional friendship. At the recently-concluded forum in Quanzhou, the two sides conducted in-depth exchanges, he said, raising his hope to further deepen cooperation for common development and the joint creation of new landscapes in judicial cooperation between the two countries.

China and Ethiopia have achieved fruitful results in Belt and Road cooperation, which has played an active role in promoting the economic development and improvement to people’s livelihoods in both countries, Deng said. The top courts of the two countries have actively conducted communication with close high-level exchanges, and reached broad consensus in many fields, he said, expressing his hope that the two sides could take the establishment of an all-weather strategic partnership between the two countries as an opportunity to enhance mutual understanding and push bilateral judicial exchanges to a new level.

Perese expressed the hope to further deepen understanding between Samoan and Chinese courts, strengthen bilateral exchanges and cooperation in such areas as trial practice and judge training, and jointly promote the development and progress of the judicial cause of the two countries.

Engidashet said that Ethiopia is willing to learn from the experience of Chinese courts and to strengthen cooperation in such fields as judge training and judicial research.