Top finance officials from China and the US met in Saint Petersburg yesterday to discuss bilateral financial and economic cooperation and agreed to boost dialogue in this field.

 

During a meeting with US Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, Finance Minister Jin Renqing said cooperation between the Chinese Finance Ministry and the US Treasury had been fruitful in recent years.

 

Finance officials will meet at a session of the China-US joint economic committee later this year to discuss financial and economic cooperation and financial reforms, Jin said, adding that the discussion should contribute to the further growth of China-US relations, as was agreed by the top leaders of the two countries during President Hu Jintao's US visit in April.

 

Jin is here to attend a dialogue today between finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized nations and those of six other countries -- China, India, Brazil, Australia, South Korea and Nigeria.

 

Snow, for his part, said the economic relationship between the US and China was the most important economic relationship in the world and the smooth development of the ties benefited the people of both countries.

 

China was playing an increasingly key role in international affairs and any discussion between the G8 or G7 and other countries would be incomplete without China's participation, Snow said.

 

Earlier in the day, Jin also discussed financial cooperation with Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and expressed his hope that China and Russia could enhance dialogue on microeconomic policy through a finance ministers' discussion mechanism to boost cooperation between the two countries.

 

G8 finance ministers gathered yesterday in this northern Russian city for a two-day meeting that is expected to focus on discussion on global economic growth, the impact of oil prices on growth, and energy security.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2006)