China has agreed to cooperate with the Philippines on 30 projects worth $3.7 billion focusing on poverty reduction, the two countries said after a meeting in Beijing on Monday.

Chinese commerce minister Gao Hucheng announced the deals without giving details, saying that this is an “initial batch” of projects that still needs to be finalized and that paperwork still needed to be processed by the banks involved.

Philippines Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said that they had a “very productive” meeting and had discussed large projects in rural areas, as well as some smaller projects.

The Philippines submitted 38 projects in total for implementation with the main objective of being to reduce poverty.

The Chinese side did not confirm whether the agreed upon 30 projects were from the submitted 38.

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