Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu met with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and Parliament Speaker Gundars Daudze in Riga on Tuesday.

In his meeting with Zatlers, Hui said the China-Latvia relations have been developing smoothly in recent years. The two sides have maintained high-level contacts and strengthened mutual political trust. There has also been remarkable progress in economic and trade cooperation and people-to-people contacts.

President Zatlers visited China last year and reached important consensus with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the development of bilateral relations, said Hui.

The current visit is aimed at implementing the consensus reached last year, deepening friendship and promoting cooperation, he said.

The two sides should work together in face of the current global financial crisis, and should also look even farther and further promote cooperation, he said.

Hui expressed the hope that the two countries could promote exchanges between governments and enterprises, and explore new ways to strengthen economic and trade cooperation, so as to promote bilateral relations and bring benefits to the two peoples.

Zatlers extended congratulations on the 60th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which falls on Oct.1 this year. China's development is an opportunity for Latvia, he said.

Latvia sees China as an important strategic partner and is willing to work with China to promote political contacts and expand cooperation in areas like economy and trade, land and sea transportation, and medicine.

In a separate meeting, Hui and Daudze spoke highly of the current bilateral relations and agreed to promote contacts between the two legislatures so that the two countries could share their experience in governance, thus contributing to the promotion of mutual understanding between the two peoples and the further improvement of bilateral relations.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2009)