Wang Zhaoguo, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, met on Monday with Motofumi Makieda, president of the Japan-China Skilled Workers Exchange Center of Japan (JCSWEC), and his delegation.

Wang, also president of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), briefed the Japanese guests on China's economic and social development and the work of ACFTU in the past year.

Wang appreciated Makieda's contribution to the development of friendship between China and Japan.

On China-Japan relations, Wang cited Chinese President Hu Jintao's remarks in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last October, saying the friendship between China and Japan conforms to the trend of the times and the popular sentiment, which is in the fundamental interests of both peoples and conducive to peace and development in Asia.

Makieda said his center was set up 20 years ago to promote people-to-people exchanges between Japan and China. "As Japan and China are so close to each other, the two countries should develop a good-neighborly and cooperative relationship," said Makieda, adding both sides should continue to make joint efforts to promote the friendship between the two countries.

The JCSWEC, established by Makieda in 1986, has invited more than 10,000 Chinese workers to Japan for advanced studies and dispatched nearly 1,300 Japanese language teachers to China.

The Japanese delegation is here at the invitation of ACFTU and the Chinese Workers Foreign Exchange Center.

Source: Xinhua