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Chinese Premier Zhu Arrives in St. Petersburg, Russia
Chinese Premier Zhu Arrives in St. Petersburg, Russia
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday afternoon to attend the sixth regular meeting of Chinese and Russian premiers, and to pay an official visit to Russia in a bid to boost the growing strategic partnership of cooperation between the two countries.
The Chinese premier and his wife, Lao An, were greeted at airport by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, St. Petersburg Mayor Vladimir Yakovlyev, Speaker of the City Parliament Sergei Tarasov and other senior Russian officials.
In a written statement issued upon his arrival at the airport, Premier Zhu said he was happy to hold the sixth Sino-Russian prime minister meeting in this well-known city.
The Chinese premier said he would, together with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Kasyanov, enhance bilateral cooperation for substantial progress in line with the principles of the Sino- Russian good-neighborly treaty of friendship and cooperation, which was signed by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July.
The decision to hold regular meetings between the two countries ' prime ministers was made in 1996, which has been playing an important role in bilateral cooperation in such fields as trade, energy, science and technology, transportation, education, culture, health and sports, Zhu said.
He noted that the total volume of bilateral trade surpassed 8 billion U.S. dollars in 2000 and the figure reached 4.6 billion dollars in the first half of this year.
"This indicates that the two economies are highly complementary to each other and there is a great potential and broad prospects for bilateral cooperation," Zhu said.
Russia is the third leg of Zhu's four-nation tour, which has taken him to Ireland and Belgium and will lead him to Kazakhstan.
During his two-day stay in St. Petersburg, Zhu and Kasyanov will sign a joint communique on the results of the regular meeting and a series of documents on bilateral cooperation.
The Chinese premier will leave for Moscow on Sunday, where he will meet Russian President Putin.
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