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China to provide 2 billion COVID vaccines globally

Participants at the first meeting of the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation from about 30 countries and international organizations have underlined the importance of vaccine multilateralism and called on countries to enhance international cooperation on vaccines in order to build a global community of health for all.

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted the meeting, which was held via video link on Thursday night, said that the vaccines, which matter so much to humanity's fight against the virus, should be distributed worldwide fairly and reasonably.

"Vaccines should be made vaccines of the people in the real sense," he said.

According to Wang, since September last year, China has been and is donating vaccines to more than 100 countries, and has exported vaccines to more than 60 countries, with the total exceeding 770 million doses, ranking first worldwide.

China was the first to cooperate with other developing countries in vaccine production, making the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Indonesia and Brazil the first countries in their respective regions to have COVID-19 vaccine production capacity. It has also actively provided vaccines to the COVAX-a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines-United Nations peacekeepers and the International Olympic Committee.

In a written speech addressed to the meeting, President Xi Jinping announced that China will strive to provide two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world throughout this year and offer $100 million to COVAX.

The announcement is another major move as China honors its commitment to make vaccines a global public good, and also allows it to make new contribution to global cooperation against COVID-19, Wang said.

Wang said that China has no political purpose in or does not seek any economic interests from its international cooperation in vaccines, and there have never been any political conditions attached to such cooperation.

However, Wang said that globally, there are still outstanding problems such as insufficient vaccine production capacity, inequitable distribution and uneven vaccination.

In order to triumph in the battle against the pandemic, Wang said "we have no option but to stay united and work together".

He called for efforts to put lives above anything else and promote global access to vaccines, to defend morality and justice and offer more assistance to developing countries, to practice multilateralism and enhance the effectiveness of international cooperation, and to strengthen coordination and build multiple lines of defense against the pandemic.

According to a news release on the Foreign Ministry's website, the foreign delegates spoke highly of China's leading role in international anti-pandemic cooperation, especially vaccine cooperation, and thanked China for honoring its commitment to make vaccines a global public good, and for making outstanding contributions to promoting vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.

In a joint statement the forum issued after its first meeting, participants underlined the importance of COVID-19 vaccines as a global public good, and called upon all parties to step up efforts to make vaccines more accessible and affordable in developing countries, especially in least-developed countries.

They also supported the waiver of intellectual property rights on vaccines.