Liberian Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai on Friday invited Chinese investors to focus on the West African country's agricultural, mining, forestry and other sectors.

Boakai, who is here for his first Beijing tour as guest of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, hailed the booming bilateral ties since the two states resumed diplomatic ties in 2003.

Appreciating China's contribution to the war-hit country's reconstruction at a business forum in Beijing, Boakai pledged to further economic and trade ties with China so as to stimulate Liberia's economic growth and improve the quality of life of local people.

Zhang Wei, vice president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said Chinese businessmen were interested in investing in Liberia and other West African states.

"We are not only interested in the mining sector, but also other industries such as agriculture, fishery and tourism, which could provide more jobs to the local community," said Yang Yutao, a manager of the private China-Union Investment Co. Ltd that has pumped two billion U.S. dollars into the country's mining sector.

China-Liberian trade hit 400 million U.S. dollars in the first four months of this year, up more than 70 percent year on year and the annual volume was 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, Chinese custom figures show.

Qin said the July 5 incident in Xinjiang was an organized and premeditated violence aimed at sabotaging China's national unification and ethnic solidarity.

The spokesman called for the international community to have a clear understanding of what really happened, understand and support the Chinese government's efforts to safeguard national unification, territorial integrity, ethnic unity and social stability.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2009)