On the evening of 23 February, the fifth day of the first month of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, Number 10 Downing Street was adorned with lanterns, dragon ornaments and all kinds of Chinese decorations. For the third consecutive year, Prime Minister David Cameron was hosting a Chinese New Year Reception for about 150 guests, including Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Culture, public figures from political, business, cultural, educational circles, and representatives of the Chinese communities and Chinese companies in the UK. H.E. Ambassador Liu Xiaoming was invited to attend the reception.

Before the reception, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming and Prime Minister David Cameron had a warm and friendly conversation. Ambassador Liu highly appreciated the Prime Minister's efforts in developing China-UK relations and thanked him for his warm Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people. Ambassador Liu expressed the hope that both China and the UK would seize the opportunity of the "big year" of 2015 to take China-UK relations to a new level.

Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out that he valued the China-UK relations. In his words, 2015 is a "golden year" for China-UK bilateral relations, with more anticipated achievements in China-UK cooperation in various fields.

At the reception, Chinese and British artists performed a bamboo flute, violin and harp trio of classical Chinese music A New Song of the Herdsmen. The melodious and lively performance won warm applause from the audience.

Prime Minister Cameron gave an inspiring speech at the reception and wished everyone Happy New Year in Chinese, "Xin Nian Kuai Le". He summarized the significance of the annual Chinese New Year reception at Number 10 as celebrating four things:

"The first thing is to celebrate the extraordinary rise and success of modern China. China is set to become once again the largest economy in the world. It has brought more people out of poverty more quickly than anywhere else at any time in history. The country is an extraordinary story to the whole world;

"The second thing to celebrate is the good and strong relationship between Britain and China which is moving forward. The exchange of high-level visits in 2015 will be very significant to the relationship;

"The third thing to celebrate is the extraordinary extent of the commercial, industrial, trading and investing relationship. The UK wants to be the most open and welcoming country that China invests in. It welcomes investment from Chinese companies and will be the one in Europe pushing for the free trade agreement with China;

"And the fourth thing to celebrate is the immense contribution of Chinese people in Britain. The British-Chinese population is the hardest working and it has the best school results, and it makes an extraordinary contribution to our country. That is the case in business and in politics."

The Prime Minister was happy to see overseas Chinese in the UK running for seats in the House of Commons of the British Parliament and wished them success.

At the reception, H.E. Ambassador Liu Xiaoming gave interviews to CCTV and Phoenix TV on China-UK relations and the upcoming visit to China by the Duke of Cambridge.