Iceland\u2019s new direct air connection with China and record bilateral trade featured in talks between Foreign Minister \u00deorger\u00f0ur Katr\u00edn Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Thursday. The meeting followed the launch of Air China\u2019s first direct service to Keflav\u00edk and a new codeshare agreement between Icelandair and Air China, according to Iceland Review\u2019s report, which cited Iceland\u2019s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Those developments provide the concrete transport connection behind discussions about growing travel between the two countries. The ministry said Chinese tourism to Iceland was growing and expected the new air service to support a further increase. That remains an expectation; the report did not provide passenger figures for the new route or quantify its effect on visitor numbers. Trade figures presented alongside the visit showed the scale of the countries\u2019 commercial relationship. Icelandic goods exports to China exceeded ISK 23 billion in 2025, rising nearly 19% from the previous year. Imports from China topped ISK 166 billion, an increase of more than 13%. The ministry described 2025 as a record year for bilateral trade. The ministers discussed expanding trade, geothermal cooperation and green technology. Existing energy links include district-heating systems jointly developed and operated by Arctic Green Energy and Sinopec in more than 70 Chinese cities. Nearly 100 Chinese specialists have also studied at Iceland\u2019s GR\u00d3 Geothermal Training Programme. \u00deorger\u00f0ur Katr\u00edn raised Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, saying she had urged China to use its influence on Russian authorities. The ministers also discussed international cooperation and respect for international law. The Beijing meeting followed the Icelandic president\u2019s 2025 visit to China. The two countries are marking 55 years of diplomatic relations in 2026, with the new Keflav\u00edk service and airline agreement adding transport links to an established trading and geothermal relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beijing talks highlight new China flights and record Iceland trade<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}