Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao met in Jakarta on Monday with Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla to exchange views on deepening strategic partnership between the two countries.

The Chinese president said that Sino-Indonesian relations had entered a new era with rapid, healthy and stable development. He added that that he and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had fruitful talks on the same day and signed joint declaration on establishing a strategic partnership between the two countries, according to sources from the Chinese delegation.

The Sino-Indonesian relations will be further developed under this strategic partnership, Hu added.

On bilateral economic and trade cooperation, the Chinese president said as China and Indonesia are both developing countries, developing economy should be their top priorities.

In recent years, the two countries have made remarkable achievements in economic and trade cooperation, Hu said, adding that the two countries should continue to strengthen cooperation in areas of infrastructure construction, energy and natural resources development, agriculture and fishing.

For his part, the Indonesian vice president noted that the Indonesian economy is recovering with increasing investment from both domestic and abroad. He added that the two countries should tap the cooperation potentials in sectors of infrastructure and energy development.

On the same day, the Chinese president also met respectively with Hidayat Nur Wahid, chairman of People's Consultative Assembly; Agung Laksono, speaker of House of Representatives, and Ginanjar Karta Sasmita, speaker of Regional People's Representative Council.

The Chinese president said as this year marks the 55th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations,the move to establish strategic partnership showed that bilateral ties have entered a new stage.

Hu said, exchanges and contacts between parliaments constitute an important part of bilateral ties. In the past years, China's National People's Congress (parliament) has kept frequent contacts with Indonesia's legislative bodies. Such contacts are conducive to promoting bilateral ties, he added.

"We should expand our contacts, learn from each other and contribute to enhancing the all-around development of strategic partnership," said the Chinese president.

The Indonesian parliamentary leaders highly praised the Chinesegovernment and people's assistance and support to Indonesia following the Indian Ocean earthquakes and tsunami.

They believed that Hu's visit will push forward the development of bilateral ties in an all-around way.

On Monday evening, the Chinese president attended a banquet hosted in his honor by his Indonesian counterpart.

The Chinese president began his two-day state visit to Indonesia on Monday after attending the 2005 Asian-African Summit and the Golden Jubilee Commemoration of the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, the West Java capital city.

Source: Xinhua