Swiss ambassador to China Jürg Burri delivers a welcome speech at the Swissplained Film Festival on September 25. Photo: Lin Xiaoyi/ GT

The new Swiss Ambassador to China Jürg Burri said on Sunday that he is very much looking forward to promoting the development of bilateral ties during his tenure.

The ambassador was speaking on the occasion of a film screening at the Swissplained Film Festival held by the Embassy of Switzerland in China.

Burri formally began his ambassadorship in Beijing on September 19. At the event on Sunday, he said he was very happy to be back in Beijing, expressing his expectation to work with the Swiss community in China to help boost mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries.

This is Burri's second time working in China. He previously served as minister and deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Switzerland in China from 2006 to 2009.

Burri said he was pleased with the interest of the Chinese public in Switzerland, as he found that the current official Sina Weibo account of the Swiss Embassy in China has attracted close to 300,000 followers.

Switzerland was one of the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with China on September 14, 1950. In July 2013, China and Switzerland signed a free trade agreement, which was the first bilateral free trade agreement between China and an economy in continental Europe.

"Since then, our relations have reached an all time high. We have topped this with a strategic, innovative dialogue and many other dialogues about security, health, human rights, economics, trade, agriculture, and so on," the ambassador said in his self-introduction video on Weibo.

In April 2016, China and Switzerland established an innovative strategic partnership.

Burri said the Swiss Embassy is now prepared to further promote the development of bilateral relations, especially after the end of the pandemic, "we will want to come and we want to meet our Chinese partners, and we want to develop that relationship. That is the top issue for the Swiss embassy," he said.

Burri said he hoped the film festival would present a wonderful audio-visual feast for the audience. To introduce Switzerland to the Chinese public, the Swiss Embassy in China has adopted the theme "Swissplained" for its year-round activities. As in previous years, the embassy held an open-air film festival in autumn to share the best of Swiss film culture.

Open-air film screenings are a Swiss cultural tradition. In recent years, many Swiss-made films have been regulars at the Berlin and Cannes film festivals and are popular with Chinese audiences.

A view of the Swissplained Film Festival Photo: Lin Xiaoyi/ GT

The Swissplained Film Festival will screen five Swiss films, including three documentaries and two feature films.

In November, the Swiss Embassy, in cooperation with Lumière Cinemas, will be showing more films from the "Swissplained" series in cinemas across China.