Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay state visits to the United States, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya from April 18 to 29, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Tuesday.

Hu's four-day U.S. trip, starting from April 18, will take him to Seattle and Washington D.C. and Hu is also expected to give a speech at the Yale University, Liu said.

The spokesman said Hu will meet with U.S. President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials during his visit. The two sides will have in-depth discussions on China-U.S. relations and other international or regional issues of common concern.

Liu said the two sides will have discussions "candidly, equally and in mutual respect". "I hope and believe that the Chinese president's visit will further boost the development of China-U.S. relations," Liu said.

He said the goal of Hu's U.S. visit was to enhance exchanges and mutual trust and expand consensus and cooperation so as to jointly promote the China-U.S. constructive cooperative relations.

Liu said both China and the United States were deeply concerned with certain key international issues and had some disputes, frictions and differences.

"Hu's visit will be a good opportunity for China and U.S. to narrow and even remove the differences," he said.