CHINA'S AMBASSADOR ABOUT RELATIONS

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China Mr Wang Xialong talked Tuesday his opinions about the official visit of Mr Wu Bangguo, Chairman and Party secretary of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China. Mr Wang highlighted an importance of the visit for the Mongolia-China relations, and said it is the first biggest high level visit of this year at the bilateral ties. A Chairman of SC of the NPC Qiao Shi paid a historical visit to Mongolia in 1997, Mr Wang noted, and expressed a confidence that this visit will open a new chapter in the bilateral relations between the legislative bodies. “Our countries have traditional and friendly relations. Mongolia was one of the countries to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Our bilateral relations have overcome specific challenges, keeping the friendly principles. The countries established the strategic partnership relations, opening a new level in the relations and developing them with new contents,” Mr Wang said. In June of 2012, the President of Mongolia Mr Elbegdorj held meetings with the PRC President Mr Hu Jintao; a member of the PRC State Council Mr Dai Bingguo visited Mongolia in last year's August after a formation of the new government and parliament in Mongolia, and shared issues with Mongolia on ways of developing the relations, especially of deepening the political mutual trust, the Ambassador noted. The new cabinet of Mongolia reaffirmed that it considers the bilateral relations as one of the priorities of its foreign policy, it means that the two sides attach a political and strategic importance to their ties. For the time being, the countries have been fortifying their mutual understanding and trust in ways of expressing their positions on regional and international issues, Mr Wang went on. The Ambassador said the Mongolia-China trade and economic cooperation have been intensively developing, for example, the bilateral trade turnover reached USD six billion 600 million by 2012, increasing 19 times against the year 2002. From last decade, China has been the biggest commercial partner and investor of Mongolia. Mr Wang emphasized that the bilateral relations and the inter-citizen ties have been intensively developing in the humanitarian sector, for instance, the number of tourists to each other reached one million and 660 thousand the previous year, and 260 thousand of them were Mongolians who visited China. Moreover, one thousand Mongolian students study every year in China with governmental scholarships. Noting that the bilateral relations have new opportunities at present, the Ambassador hoped that the sides will deepen their relations, exploiting the advantages of ties. B.Khuder