China's top legislator hails friendly political, economic ties with Romania

Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo on Thursday in Bucharest hailed the friendly and steadily developing relations between China and Romania, where he is on a three-day official good-will visit.

In his speech to the Romanian parliament, Wu said since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1949, China and Romania have always sincerely treated, trusted and supported each other despite great changes in international and domestic situation.

The friendly relations between the two countries have advanced steadily, he stressed.

"China respects Romania's choice of its social system and road of development according to its national conditions and respects Romania's foreign policy of integrating itself into Europe," Wu said.

He recalled the visits by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and incumbent Chinese President Hu Jintao to Romania and those by Romanian President Traian Basescu to China, saying the frequent exchange of visits have consolidated and enhanced the political basis of bilateral ties.

Wu noted that during President Jiang's 1996 visit to Romania, the two sides agreed to look on and treat bilateral relations with an eye on the 21st century, enhancing exchanges and cooperation to push ties between the two countries to a new high.

And during President Hu's Romania visit in 2004, leaders of the two countries reached broad consensus on deepening bilateral friendly relations, signing a joint declaration on establishing an all-round friendly and cooperative partnership, he added.

During President Basescu's successful visit to China last March, Wu noted, the two sides consolidated and deepened their traditional friendship and reached consensus on furthering their all-round friendly and cooperative partnership.

Bilateral trade has also developed rapidly in recent years, along with more mutual investment, Wu said.

Trade between the two countries increased from 298 million U.S. dollars in 2000 to 1.66 billion dollars in 2005, and there are thousands of Chinese companies in Romania with investment totaling 200 million dollars.

Romania has some 178 million dollars worth of investment in 334 projects in China, Wu said. Romania's contractual investment in China has totaled 434 million dollars.

The fast development of bilateral trade brings real benefits to both peoples, and has laid a solid foundation for the development of Sino-Romanian relations, Wu added.

He said China places great emphasis on the friendly bilateral ties with Romania, and always regards it as a good friend and good partner in Europe. He hoped his visit would further advance the friendly partnership.

Wu is on a four-nation tour which will later take him to Moldova, Greece and Russia.

Source: Xinhua