China, Russia agree more parliamentary cooperation

BEIJING -- China and Russia on Thursday agreed to strengthen their parliamentary cooperation to contribute more for the bilateral relations.

The pledge was made in the second meeting of the cooperation committee between China's National People's Congress, the top legislative body, and the Russian Federal Council and the State Duma, the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, and Sergei Naryshkin, head of the State Duma, co-chaired the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing.

Zhang said the two sides should take the 15th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation as an opportunity, carry forward the spirit of equality, mutual trust, mutual support, common prosperity and long-lasting friendship, and create better environment for the development of the bilateral relations.

He said legislative bodies of the two countries should continue to support the two peoples to choose their own path of development.

The two sides should strengthen cooperation on legislature and supervision to support the two governments to enhance coordination on locality and industrial development policies and plans, help the government solve problems in cooperation, and provide better legal and policy environment, he said.

Zhang called on the two sides to give full play to the cooperation committee and increase cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

He also urged the two sides to have closer coordination within multilateral frameworks including the BRICS parliamentary forum, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum, to jointly safeguard the two countries' common interest, and the peace and stability of the world.

Hailing the parliamentary cooperation and exchanges between the two legislative bodies as fruitful, Naryshkin said the Russia-China friendly cooperation is in the fundamental interests of the two countries and two peoples.

Naryshkin said the Russian side will well implement the results of the second meeting and strengthen the synergy of the two countries' development strategies, as well as their cultural and people-to-people exchanges and educational cooperation.

President Xi Jinping also met with Naryshkin on Thursday afternoon. Naryshkin, who was visiting China from Wednesday to Friday as guest of Zhang, will also go to Shenzhen in south China.