CAIRO, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in Egypt hosted on Tuesday night a special reception for local Chinese community to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Hundreds of people from the Chinese community in Egypt, including representatives of Chinese students and companies in the North African country, attended the event in Cairo.
"Seventy years is a very short period of time. It is only a period of China's 5,000-year history of civilization. But it is also long, since it's a journey that many generations have struggled and fought for their motherland," Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang said during his welcoming speech.
He stressed that China has proved that the path of development that it has chosen is the right one, adding that China's development is an opportunity for the world.
The Chinese envoy also touted the rising China-Egypt economic and trade cooperation as shown by the fact that China has become Egypt's largest trading partner.
"The bilateral trade volume reached 6.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of this year. Education cooperation has also been continuously strengthened," Liao noted.
During the reception, the embassy screened the video of Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a speech on Tuesday in Beijing at a grand rally to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the PRC founding.
Xi's speech received loud applause from the joyful guests who excitedly waved Chinese flags. They also watched the video of the grand military parade and the mass pageantry held in Beijing.
"I really feel proud to be a Chinese, especially today," Han Xu, head of the Egyptian branch of Beijing Spice Spirit Food Company, told Xinhua at the reception.
"I watched the parade and the ceremony. They showed to the world that we are not weak anymore, and we want to maintain the peace of the world," he said.
Han added that he hoped more and more people will go to China "to understand and see the real China."
At the entrance to the reception held in a local hotel, a photo exhibition was held to tell through the pictures the story of China's fast rise from a poor country to the second largest economy in the world within the past seven decades.
