Chinese President Hu Jintao and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks at the Great Hall of the People Tuesday afternoon, agreeing to seek stronger bilateral ties.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination. Over the past decade, China-Russia relations have undergone all-round and rapid progress, producing a series of important achievements, Hu said.

The two countries signed more than 200 legal documents, including the Sino-Russian good neighborly treaty of friendship and cooperation, which laid a solid foundation for the development of bilateral ties, Hu said.

Hu added that the two countries thoroughly settled boundary issues left over by history, removing obstacles to bilateral ties.

The establishment of regular high-level consultation mechanism helps the two countries keep close consultation and coordination on major issues concerning their fundamental interests, Hu noted.

The fact that President Putin is heading such a big delegation to China and will attend the opening ceremony of the Year of Russia in China demonstrates that Putin highly values Sino-Russian relations, Hu said.

"I believe this visit, especially the hosting of the theme year in each other's country, will enhance the mutual understanding between the two peoples and advance the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination," He said.

Hu made a four-point proposal on enhancing strategic coordination and substantial cooperation between China and Russia.

Those proposals include: to regard promoting political mutual-trust as a long-term task in the development of bilateral ties, strengthen support on issues concerning each other's core interests;

To regard deepening substantial cooperation as a focus, push forward cooperation in trade, energy, hi-tech industry, infrastructure construction, utilization and preservation of cross-border water resources by improving trade structure, stimulating cooperation in large projects and promoting two-way investment;

To regard the institution of concerted economic strategies for the two countries as a goal to achieve and to regard exchange and cooperation in humanities sector as an important foundation for the generations of friendship between the two peoples.

China highly appreciates Russia's firm support on the Taiwan issue, Hu said, reiterating China respects Russian people's choice in seeking a development method which is in line with the country's own situation and supports Russia's efforts in maintaining national stability and safety.

Echoing Hu's remarks, Putin said the start of the Year of Russia in China, which is unprecedented in scale and involves activities in various fields, shows that current Russia-China relations have reached "a very high level, and laid a better foundation for their future development."

Noting that China is Russia's fourth largest trade partner, Putin said Russia was "very satisfied with bilateral trade ties".

There still exists huge potential in bilateral trade cooperation, Putin said. "China-Russia trade volume will surely meet the set goal of 60 billion to 80 billion U.S. dollars in 2010."

China-Russia trade volume hit 29.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2005, up 37 percent year on year. The growth is much higher than the 20 percent to 25 percent average annual growth planned in a middle and long-term lay-out for the two neighbors' trade development.

"The Sino-Russian trade has got on a fast track with increasing cooperation methods and expanding cooperation fields," said Liu Guchang, Chinese ambassador to Russia, on the eve of Putin's China tour.

Putin said that Russia would like to step up cooperation with China on transportation and banking, so as to meet the demand of increasing trade volume.

"We will expand the export of machinery to China and continuously expand the collaboration on space and mobile communications," Putin said.

Among Putin's delegation members are key Russian entrepreneurs in energy, banking and media, who are expected to exchange views with their Chinese partners to seek stronger cooperation.

During Putin's stay in Beijing, a Sino-Russian economic and trade summit will be held and the two sides will launch a series of business activities in a bid to boost trade and investment.

"China and Russia have established a sound foundation for trade and economic cooperation, both in terms of political and economic situation. Great potentials and soaring trade of the two economies will serve to reach the set goals," said Li Fuchuan, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Other favorable conditions include the planned building of a natural gas pipeline, Russia's expected accession to the World Trade Organization and China's growing imports of Russian civil aviation aircraft and power generation facilities, Li said.

After the official talks, Hu and Putin witnessed the signing of 15 cooperation documents, including three deals on oil and natural gas cooperation.

The three documents include a principled agreement between the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and the Russian oil company of Rosneft for forming joint ventures to further oil cooperation, a memorandum of understanding between the CNPC and Russia's natural gas company Gazprom for natural gas supply to China, and a summary of negotiations between the CNPC and Transneft, a pipeline transport company of Russia.

Before the official talks, Hu and Pu held a closed-door meeting.

Putin arrived here Tuesday morning for a two-day state visit at the invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao. This is Putin's second visit to China since he was reelected Russian President in 2004.

Source: Xinhua