ST. PETERSBURG: President Hu Jintao held a series of bilateral meetings with Group of Eight (G8) members yesterday on the sidelines of the outreach session of the group's annual economic summit, but Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was not included.

Bilateral political and economic relations were high on the agenda of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

During his meeting with Putin, Hu said the just-concluded summit that Russia hosted would help promote co-operation between developed and developing countries and help them jointly address the challenges arising from globalization.

"China is ready to work with the Russian side to push for the realization of the consensus reached at the summit."

Responding to Hu, Putin said it is crucial to invite China to attend the outreach session of the G8 summit, which is conducive to economic development and the resolution of major global issues.

The two leaders also agreed to continue to intensify partnership in the energy sector.

This is the second bilateral meeting between Hu and Putin in four months. The previous one took place in Beijing in March, when the two nations inked a deal on building two large gas pipelines to China within five years and also agreed to continue a feasibility study on extending an oil pipeline to China.

Oil and gas majors from the neighbouring countries are deepening co-operation as the leaders of China and Russia push for more energy partnerships.

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China's biggest oil firm, and Moscow-based Gazprom, Russia's state-owned natural gas giant, were reported to have reached an initial agreement to build two pipelines to transport up to 68 billion cubic metres of Russian gas to China annually, but the pricing still has not been revealed.

China's biggest oil refiner, Sinopec Group, is buying 97 per cent of the Udmurtneft assets of TNK-BP company.

Bilateral trade between China and Russia reached more than US$29 billion last year, according to the statistics from China's customs authority.

The two nations have aimed to bring the two-way trade to US$60-80 billion by 2010 and raise Chinese investment in Russia to US$12 billion.

Both leaders also appealed to related parties to be more flexible in the process of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula so as to resume the Six-Party Talks as soon as possible.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Russia strategic partnership of co-ordination and the fifth anniversary of the Sino-Russian good neighbourly treaty of friendship and co-operation.

Source: China Daily