Portuguese Minister of Finance Vítor Gaspar will pay a 24-hour visit to China next month, overlapping with Minister for Foreign Affairs Paulo Portas in the Chinese capital, a diplomat told Lusa news agency Friday.

Lisbon’s two senior ministers of state will have separate agendas, but will appear together at a 5 July dinner for Portuguese and Chinese bankers, the diplomat added.

Portas’ eight-day visit, starting 1 July, which will also take him to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau, had been announced previously.

The Beijing-based diplomat said Gaspar would be accompanied by Secretary of State for the Treasury Maria Luís Albuquerque, who will be making her second visit to Beijing in less than a month.

Albuquerque described her earlier 12 June trip to the Chinese capital as part of Lisbon’s contacts with investors in its sovereign debt and aimed to inform them of “recent developments” in Portugal.

“China is confident of Portugal’s economic recovery” and had a “generally good perception” of Lisbon’s performance under its EU-IMF bailout programme, she told Lusa at the time.