"We are looking forward to your visit-it will climax this year's bilateral exchanges," said Mr. Putin as they had bilateral summitry in the Kremlin today.
President Hu said he was determined to revisit Russia quite soon.
The official visit has been scheduled for July next, and the two leaders were today to discuss its preparations, a Kremlin functionary said to Novosti on a previous occasion.
President Putin highly evaluated the progress of Russo-Chinese contacts and compliance with all available understandings. He thanked President Hu and the entire Chinese nation for considerate attention to Russian WWII veterans resident in China, and for tending the graves of more than 11,000 Soviet soldiers fallen in fighting militarist Japan.
There was profound symbolism to today's Russo-Chinese summitry, stressed our informant.
Russia and China have close stances on international issues, in particular, a UN Security Council reform envisaged by General Assembly resolutions, he went on.
Our interviewee also highlighted progress in bilateral trade. It had a bumper turnover last year-close on $15 billion, on Russian statistics. The Chinese evaluation is even more impressive-$21.2 billion, with a 35 per cent increase. The year made Russia China's ninth-largest commercial partner.
China intends to bring its capital investment in the Russian economy to a $12 billion mark by 2020, he added.
