Beijing, June 16 (UNI) Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Bill Gates on Friday and expressed his appreciation for Microsoft co-founder's efforts to fight global poverty and promote health care, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

On Wednesday, Gates said on Twitter that he had arrived in China for the first time since 2019 to meet with Gates Foundation partners and discuss issues related to global health and development challenges.

Xi met with the US billionaire for the first time in several years.

In January 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $5 million to China to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. On Friday, the foundation said that it had resumed its cooperation with Beijing's municipal government and Tsinghua University in the field of health care. In particular, the foundation will provide the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute with $50 million over the next five years.