Chinese President Xi Jinping (4th L) meets with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 22, 2015. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo agreed Wednesday to further deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between their two countries.[Special coverage]
The two leaders shared the view of pushing forward bilateral relations to wider areas and deeper levels, according to a joint communique released as Xi is in Indonesia for the Asian-African Summit and commemorative activities for the historic 1955 Bandung Conference.
In the communique, Xi and Widodo reaffirmed their commitment to comprehensively synergizing China's strategic vision of building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and Indonesia's development plan of Global Maritime Fulcrum.
They also agreed to strengthen policy coordination, practical cooperation and exchanges of experience from each civilization, and forge a maritime partnership for common development and shared prosperity.
According to the communique, China and Indonesia will jointly strive for the new bilateral trade target of 150 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, work towards reducing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, and increase the frequency of trade missions between the two countries.
Meanwhile, China reaffirmed to actively participate in Indonesia's infrastructure and connectivity development, such as railways, highways, ports, docks, dams, airports and bridges. China is also ready to provide financing support for the relevant projects in various forms, read the communique.
The two sides agreed to further leverage their comparative advantages to intensify mutually beneficial cooperation in such industrial capacity areas as power generation, steel, ferrous metal, ship building and building materials.
China and Indonesia, according to the communique, agreed to encourage more effective implementation of the Bilateral Currency Swap Arrangement (BCSA), which was signed in March 2009 and renewed in October 2013 with terms of validity of three years.
The two leaders recognized the importance of the BCSA to guarantee the stability of financial market by ensuring the availability of short-term liquidity.
Xi and Widodo also agreed to facilitate the use of local currencies to further promote two-way trade and investment.
Meanwhile, China reaffirmed its support for the building of the ASEAN Community and its support for ASEAN centrality in the region, and stated its readiness to enhance communication and practical cooperation with Indonesia and other ASEAN countries in China-ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three, East Asia Summit and other regional cooperation frameworks, and jointly uphold peace, development and prosperity in East Asia, read the communique.
The two leaders also encouraged more Chinese and Indonesian citizens to visit each other's country.
The Indonesian side, according to the joint communique, proposed to realize the annual target of two-way visits of 10 million tourists by 2020, while both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation with respect to high quality and safe tourists services.
