China and Uzbekistan signed eight cooperation agreements in Beijing on Tuesday, pledging to step up their friendly and cooperative partnership to a higher level.
The signing of the agreements, which range from investment, economic cooperation, finance to natural resource, took place after talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his visiting Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov.
During the talks, Hu offered a five-point proposal to consolidate the bilateral ties, suggesting the two nations work closer so to safeguard peace and stability in the region and the rest of the world.
Firstly, the two nation could enhance all-level exchanges and political mutual trust, Hu said, adding that both sides should maintain close high-level exchanges, deepen cooperation between governments, legislative bodies and parties, as well as develop and improve the bilateral cooperation mechanism.
Secondly, the Chinese president suggested that the two nations explore potentials for cooperation and further pragmatic cooperation.
Both parties should promote continued and steady growth in bilateral trade, broaden cooperation in energy, non-resources sectors, traffic and communication, Hu said.
The two countries should also improve the environment for investment to facilitate the investment of Chinese enterprises in Uzbekistan and vice versa, he added.
Thirdly, according to Hu, China and Uzbekistan should deepen security cooperation to safeguard regional stability. Both parties should enhance security dialogue and coordination within bilateral and multilateral frameworks and timely exchange information to crack down on the "three evil forces" of separatism, extremism and terrorism, including the "Eastern Turkistan" terrorist forces, and transnational organized crimes.
Fourthly, the two nations should expand people-to-people exchanges and promote non-governmental friendship, Hu said, calling on both sides to take the opportunity of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of China-Uzbekistan diplomatic relationship next year to push forward exchanges of different forms between the two peoples to further consolidate the social basis of bilateral friendship.