China and Turkey have pledged to enhance friendly cooperation in all fields when top leaders of the two countries met?on Friday afternoon.
Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), and Premier Wen Jiabao met with visiting Turkish President Abdullah Gul separately on Friday afternoon, during which they highly valued the development of relations.
Wu said NPC has good relations with the Turkish Grand National Assembly and they have done a lot of work in promoting friendly relations between the two countries.
He said the two bodies can keep this good tradition and make new contributions to enhancing political trust and practical cooperation between the two countries.
Wu also thanked Turkey for its adherence to the one-China policy and support for China on the issues of Taiwan, Tibet and East Turkistan.
China and Turkey also agree to promote relations between parliaments when Gul met with Wu.
Gul said he has been deeply impressed by Chinese people's affection to Turkey during this visit. Turkey attaches great importance to China's role in international affairs.
He said he hoped the two sides can increase cooperation in all fields.
Premier Wen Jiabao said the international financial crisis has caused great damage to both China and Turkey, so the two countries should take feasible and effective measures to maintain stable and balanced development of trade.
He urged the two countries to expand cooperation in the fields of communications, electric power and telecommunications and increase investment in each other's country.
Wen said both China and Turkey, as two influential developing countries, should enhance coordination, safeguard common interest, have more voice as developing countries in international organizations, so as to promote the balanced and win-win development of economic globalization which will bring benefit to all countries.
Earlier Friday Gul has gave a speech in China-Turkey Business Forum, which was attended by more than 400 enterprises from both countries, urging the two sides to promote business and trade cooperation.
According to Chinese Customs statistics, trade volume between China and Turkey in 2008 was 12.57 billion dollars, an increase of 7 percent year on year. China's exports to Turkey reached 10.59 billion dollars, while import from Turkey was only 1.98 billion dollars, an increase of 1 percent and 53 percent respectively.
Gul arrived here on Wednesday, for a six-day state visit as President Hu Jintao's guest. Gul will visit northwest China's Shaanxi Province BS Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and south China's Guangdong Province.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2009)
