More than 150 overseas Chinese celebrated the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year at a reception hosted by Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom on Wednesday.

The reception in London opened with a short video highlighting China's economic and social achievements and foreign exchanges in the past decade before Ambassador Zheng Zeguang's Chinese Lunar New Year speech.

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of ambassadorial relations between China and the UK, and people of the two countries have held various celebration events," the ambassador noted. "China has always upheld dialogues and promoted cooperation to further develop Sino-UK relations … In the new year, we hope the cooperation in trade, education, culture, and climate change will bring more real benefits to the peoples of the two countries."

Yang Xiaoguang, the embassy's charge d'affaires ad interim, read out the speech on behalf of the ambassador, and expressed good wishes for Chinese people living, studying, and working in the UK.

Yang said the strong resilience and huge potential of the dynamic economy in China remained unchanged for the long term and would provide new opportunities.

"With the recent optimization of the COVID-19 control measures, personnel exchanges will become convenient," Yang said. "The country's economy will rebound at a fast pace as a series of economic policies have been launched."

He added that China welcomes "overseas Chinese to continue contributing to the country's modernization and rejuvenation, and share the benefits of the country's development".

Lu Haotian, an employee of China Telecom (Europe), who has lived in London for eight years, said: "The previous Lunar New Year receptions were suspended because of the pandemic, so I am very happy to meet friends, old and new, face-to-face. Tonight's embassy's reception made me feel at home."

Guo Zhenyu, who works for mobile phone company Honor's UK branch, said he was proud to see the great changes and achievements happening in China, and that he wished Sino-UK relations could improve and the UK market could become more open to Chinese brands in the new year.

Liu Mingyang, a student at Goldsmith, University of London, said he volunteered to help with the embassy's work in dispatching health kits to overseas Chinese students earlier in the pandemic, which made him feel first-hand the strong support of the motherland in hard times.

"I hope my fellow students will make better use of our time, study hard, and contribute to the country in the future," said Liu.