Li calls for joint efforts with Russia to expand cooperation

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met Russian President Vladimir Putin here on Tuesday, calling for joint efforts from both sides to expand bilateral cooperation.[Special coverage]

Li conveyed Chinese President Xi Jinping's best regards to Putin, saying that the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has continuously made new progresses.

China and Russia always respect each other, treat each other equally, respect each other on the development path they have chosen in accordance with their own national conditions and support each other on issues regarding their core interests and major concerns, Li said.

China and Russia have held 19 prime ministers' regular meetings, testifying to the long-term stability of the bilateral ties, Li said.

The just-concluded meeting yielded fruitful results and will significantly promote and deepen China-Russia pragmatic cooperation, he added.

As each other's biggest neighbor, China and Russia are highly complementary and have a broad prospect for cooperation, Li said.

He called on the two sides to work together to further expand the size of their two-way trade and investment, promote bilateral cooperation in such fields as energy, finance and high-speed railway, to bring benefits to the two peoples, which is also conducive to global peace and stability and regional prosperity and development.

For his part, Putin asked Li to convey his best regards to President Xi, saying he is happy to see the fast development of China-Russia relations.

Despite a gloomy global economy, the trade volume between Russia and China grew fast last year, nearing the target of 100 billion U.S. dollars set for 2015, said Putin.

The two sides endorsed a lot of cooperative documents during the just-concluded meeting between the two prime ministers, said the Russian president, expecting Li's visit to inject new impetus into the bilateral cooperation across the board.