President Hu Jintao met with Lao National Assembly President
Thongsing Thammavong in Vientiane yesterday, and the two discussed
efforts to promote bilateral ties and cooperation.
China and Laos have been friendly neighbors since ancient times,
and recent years have witnessed the all-around development of the
relationship between the two countries and two parties, Hu
said.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government
stand ready to work with their Lao counterparts to promote their
all-around cooperative relations of long-term stability,
good-neighborliness and mutual trust to a new height, said Hu, who
is also the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.
For his part, Thongsing said President Hu's current visit would
consolidate the foundation of Laos-China ties, boost their friendly
and all-around cooperation and bring bilateral relations to a new
stage of development.
Noting that China's National People's Congress (NPC) and the Lao
National Assembly face the same task of fostering socialist
democracy and strengthening the socialist legal system in their
respective countries, Hu said it was important for the two sides to
increase exchanges.
Lauding the existing good cooperative ties between the Lao
National Assembly and China's NPC, Thongsing expressed the hope
that the two sides would expand exchanges and maintain the
high-level exchange of visits by the legislative bodies of the two
countries.
Hu arrived here Sunday afternoon from Vietnam where he paid a
state visit and attended the 14th APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Hanoi.
Laos is the second leg of Hu's four-nation tour, which will also
take him to India and Pakistan.
Hu also met with Khamtay Siphandone, the former Lao president
and former president of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party.
(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2006)
