On September 30th, Ambassador He Xiangdong met Mr. Charlie McConalogue T.D., Minister for Agriculture and the Marine of Ireland. Mr. Martin Heydon T.D., Minister of State, and Ms. Sinead McPhillips, Assistant Secretary General of Department of Agriculture were present.

​On behalf of the Irish government, Minister McConalogue extended his warm wishes to the Chinese people on the occasion of the Chinese National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mr. McConalogue said that China is Ireland's third-largest agri-food market outside the EU. More and more Irish agri-food enterprises are strengthening collaborations with their Chinese partners. Ireland is optimistic about China's broad market prospects and looks forward to exporting more high-quality agri-food products to China. Mr. McConalogue emphasized that Ireland is working for a rapid economic recovery amid the challenge of the COVID-19 epidemic, and Ireland would be more than willing to further enhance economic and trade cooperation with China in order to boost the economic development of both China and Ireland.

Ambassador He positively commented on China-Ireland trade relations. He said that China and Ireland are complementary to each other in bilateral trade. Chinese people are fond of Irish meat, dairy products, and seafood. China welcomes more Irish agri-food products' entry into the Chinese market. The Ambassador pointed out that although the global economy has been significantly impacted by the pandemic, China-Ireland agri-food trade enjoys steady growth, benefiting from healthy and steady development of China-Ireland bilateral relations. China stands ready to work with Ireland to further strengthen communication, to expand friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields and to overcome difficulties together.