Manmohan, Wen meet to boost strategic partnership: Envoy

The meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and China in Hanoi on Friday would further advance the strategic partnership between the two countries, Chinese envoy to India Zhang Yan said.

The meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and China in Hanoi on Friday would further advance the strategic partnership between the two countries, Chinese envoy to India Zhang Yan said.

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"In the next few days the Prime Ministers of the two countries will meet again in Hanoi. The frequent high level interactions have provided a solid foundation for our cooperation in all areas," the Chinese ambassador said at the Hong Kong-Guangdong business conference here.

His statement came days ahead of the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in Hanoi. Yan said President Pratibha Patil's China visit in May had given a boost to India-China relations to a new high and the upcoming meeting between the two Prime Ministers would also go a long way in exploiting the huge potential of these historic ties.

While the Chinese Premier is expected to visit India at the end of this year, a top leader and Politburo member of the Chinese Communist Party Zhou Yongkang will arrive here this month end to hold discussions with the Indian political leadership.

The Chinese ambassador said that in 2008, during the visit Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China, the two nations had signed a shared vision for the 21st century and committed to promote gobal peace and common prosperity by further advancing the strategic partnership.

Maintaining that the bilateral trade volume grew 20 times from USD 2.9 billion in 2000 to USD 61.7 billion in 2008, Yan said in the past three years, the investment between China and India also increased 10 times.

In spite of the global financial crisis, China and India "have achieved relatively good recovery and maintained a fast rate of growth," he said.

The strength of the two economies and their complementarity with each other has "offered great opportunities to the business community all over the world", he said and exhorted Indian business to invest in China especially in IT and financial sectors.