State Councilor Yang Jiechi on May 12 congratulated Alan Peter Cayetano on his appointment as Foreign Affairs Secretary of the Philippines.

Yang noted in his congratulatory message that President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reached important consensus last year on improving and developing China-Philippines relations.

Since then, bilateral relations have been back on the right track of good-neighborliness and friendly cooperation, and cooperation between China and the Philippines has entered a new stage, yielding fruitful results in various areas, which is in the fundamental interests of the two countries as well as peoples of the two sides, Yang said.

Yang also expressed his willingness to work closely with Cayetano to jointly push forward the development of China-Philippines relations so as to benefit the peoples of the two countries.