Greek officials say they want to boost investment from China to help the country's economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

An online summit on Thursday brought together businesses from the two nations as Athens looks to play a bigger role in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The BRI seeks to build trade and infrastructure routes along the old Silk Road and is Beijing's signature foreign policy.

Greece's minister of development and investments, Adonis Georgiadis, said his government wanted "to re-establish the strong relationship with China" before COVID-19.

"Of course, the pandemic slowed down the process, because it's still not possible to have mutual travel between Greece and China, but we want to reassure our counterparts that we are here to solve problems," Georgiadis said.