Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday held talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in Moscow and discussed with him efforts to further expand practical cooperation in all fields between the two countries.

The Chinese president said the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has progressed constantly and the mutually beneficial cooperation in all fields between the two sides has yielded satisfactory results.

Hu said he exchanged views with President Vladimir Putin on a wide range of issues during their talks on Friday and agreed with him on a variety of measures to further increase mutual political trust, expand mutual support and boost cooperation in various areas, especially in economic, trade, energy resources, culture and military sectors.

They also agreed to expedite coordination in regional and international affairs in a bid to safeguard their common interests,maintain world peace and promote common development, Hu added.

He said that against the backdrop of the constantly developing Sino-Russian ties, the two countries share a common responsibility for expanding practical cooperation in the interest of their two peoples.

The two countries should handle the practical cooperation from a strategic point of view, concretely implement all bilateral agreements and constantly raise the level of cooperation in order to realize mutual benefit and achieve a win-win situation, said the president.

More efforts should be made to optimize the trade structures and modify the mode of increasing trade volumes, he said, adding that special emphasis should be placed on boosting bilateral trade on machinery and electronic products.

Efforts should also be made to deepen their cooperation in the energy sector and push for joint actions in oil and natural gas exploring, Hu said. China supports an expanded cooperation in electric power and hopes Russia to develop markets in China providing China with stable power supplies at competitive prices, he added.

The two sides should work to initiate cooperation on large projects through investment cooperation, and waste no time in implementing the investment agreements that have been signed between the two sides, he said.

Meanwhile, they should work out detailed investment plans, clarify investment projects, sign an agreement on investment protection as soon as possible so as to ensure a sound development of bilateral investment cooperation, he added.

As to cooperation in the culture area, Hu said the two countries have agreed to hold "Russia Year" in China in 2006 and "China Year" in Russia in 2007.

Efforts will also be made to promote local exchanges between the two countries, further encouraging the border areas of the two countries to make into full play of the existing meeting mechanism to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation.

For his part, Fradkov said Hu's current trip in Russia is of great importance to the comprehensive development of bilateral relations, as he and President Putin reached broad consensus on enhancing the China-Russia strategic partnership.

The Russian prime minister pledged active efforts of his government to work with China to fully implement all accords agreed upon by the two heads of state.

Fradkov said Russia is ready to explore new fields of bilateral trade, optimize trade structure and cooperation mechanisms, and encourage both sides to increase investment in each other.

Russia will work to fulfill the consensus reached between the Chinese and Russian presidents on oil pipeline construction and strengthen bilateral coordination in energy strategy, he added.

Noting that culture exchanges are complementary to economic and technical cooperation, Fradkov said both sides should begin preparatory work for the Russia Year in China scheduled for 2006 and the China Year in Russia for 2007.

Hu arrived in Moscow on Thursday for a state visit, the first leg of his three-nation tour, which will also take him to Kazakhstan and Britain.

One day before his meeting with Fradkov, Hu held a three-hour meeting with Putin on political, economic, military and cultural cooperation and signed a joint statement afterwards.

Besides Moscow, Hu will also visit Russia's third largest city of Novosibirsk, where he will discuss regional cooperation with the Russian side.

Source: Xinhua