At noon of November 17, 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao who was on a state visit to Argentina attended the welcome conference held jointly by the upper and lower houses of the Argentine Parliament. Hu delivered an important speech entitled Enhancing Friendly Cooperation and Promoting Common Development to the conference, highly commenting China-Argentina ties and achievements and significance of China-Latin America relations and noting that China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries should seize opportunities and make joint efforts to promote the bilateral relations to new levels.

At 11:25 am, when President Hu Jintao accompanied by Argentine Vice President and Chairman of the upper house Daniel Osvaldo Scioli and lower house Chairman Eduardo Oscar Camano stepped into the grand antique conference hall of the lower house, about 500 participants including the members of the upper and lower houses, government officials, foreign diplomatic envoys to Argentina and representatives of Chinese living in Argentina and all sectors of the society stood up and applauded for a long period of time to welcome President Hu.

In the speech Hu pointed out that Argentina is an important country in Latin America. In the course of history the Argentine people made relentless efforts to fight for national independence and build a beautiful homeland and scored outstanding achievements. Today under new situations, the Argentine people are committed to rejuvenating economy and promoting social progress, playing a major role in both regional and international affairs. China and Argentina are far away from each other, but they enjoy long history of friendly contact. Over 32 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the bilateral ties have been witnessing comprehensive and stable development. In the political area, the exchange of high-level visits between the two countries is frequent and political mutual trust is strengthened constantly. In 2001 the two countries decided to build comprehensive partnership, and President Kirchner and I also reached consensus on building and developing China-Argentina strategic partnership. In the economic field, bilateral cooperation keeps expanding and both countries have become an important trade partner to each other. In the international affairs, both countries hold many identical or similar positions, extend support for each other on some major issues and have conducted sound cooperation. The exchanges and understanding between the two peoples continue to increase and their traditional friendship keeps deepening.

Hu stressed that the Chinese government attaches great importance to China-Argentina relations and stands ready to work together with Argentina to promote the healthy and stable development of the mutually beneficial and friendly cooperative relations between the two countries. This year President Kirchner and I realized the exchange of visits. We held fruitful talks and agreed that to further strengthen and deepen China-Argentina relations are beneficial to the common development of both countries and to regional and world peace and development as well. To that end, we identified four principles of developing China-Argentina relations: first, strengthening political mutual trust and expanding political common consensus; second, enhancing economic and trade cooperation and promoting scientific and technological exchanges; third, increasing personnel exchanges and promoting training of talents; fourth, strengthening mutual coordination and building closer cooperation in multilateral fronts. I firmly believe that with the joint efforts of both sides China-Argentina strategic partnership will surely make new achievements constantly.

Hu said that China is an ancient civilization with more than five thousand years of history and a country creating the glorious history of people's revolution in modern times. In the long course of history, all the nationalities of China always carry on the great national spirit of solidarity, loving peace, diligence and bravery and striving unceasingly with patriotism at the core and develop and build the grand mountains and rivers of their beloved motherland. In modern times, the Chinese people rose up to resist the brutal invasion of imperialist countries and the decadent rule of feudalism and authoritarianism. After more than 100 years of hard and bitter struggle, the Chinese people ultimately founded a new country in which they are the masters and have scored great achievements along the road of building socialism.

Hu emphasized that China is a country undergoing profound changes in the process of reform and opening up and the largest developing country in the world with a population of 1.3 billion. Since the reform and opening up, China's GDP has been maintaining a growth rate of 9.4%, various social undertakings develop in an all-round manner and people's living standards in general have reached the level of a well-off society. China's social productivity and comprehensive national strength have achieved historic leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, China has a large population, weak economic foundation and uneven development and still has a long way to go to basically achieve modernization. We have defined our development goal for the future, and that is to concentrate on building a well-off society in an all-round way. We will adhere to the concept of people-oriented, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development to properly balance urban and rural development, development among regions, economic and social development, development of man and nature, and domestic development and opening to the outside world and constantly push forward the economic and social progress and the development of people in a comprehensive way. We believe that China's development will not only raise the living standards of the 1.3 billion Chinese people but also bring about more development opportunities to all the other countries in the world including Argentina.

Hu said that China is a peace-loving country and a country highly responsible for the international community. China always holds high the banner of peace, development and cooperation, follows an independent foreign policy of peace and adheres to the road of peaceful development. The purpose of Chinese foreign policy is to maintain world peace and promote common development. We stand for following the trend of world polarization and economic globalization and pushing forward the establishment of a just and reasonable new international political and economic order; maintaining the diversity of the international community, democratization of international relations and diversified development modes; building a new security concept of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and collaboration and solving disputes through dialogue and cooperation; promoting the development of economic globalization in the direction favorable to common prosperity, especially to the accelerated growth of developing countries. China and other developing countries in the world share the common fate and face the same development tasks. To strengthen cooperation with other developing countries is a basic principle underlying China's foreign policy. China will always stand on the side of developing countries and work together to promote the prosperity and progress of developing countries and push forward world peace and development.

Hu stressed that China attaches great importance to the relations with the Latin American and Caribbean countries. The two sides are both developing countries. Under the current complicated and volatile international situations, bilateral cooperation will help both sides to better cope with challenges in their respective course of development and benefit world peace and common development. For a fairly long period in the future, China will concentrate on modernization construction and the Latin American and Caribbean countries also enjoy great development potential, which will create extremely valuable historical opportunities for China and Latin America to strengthen cooperation, score mutual benefits and build a win-win situation. We should take the opportunities and make joint efforts to push for China-Latin America relations to new levels and benefit our peoples.

Lastly Hu pointed out that the Chinese people, Argentine people and the peoples of all the rest Latin American and Caribbean countries are great peoples and have all created glorious history. The era calls for our joint efforts to open a new chapter of win-win cooperation in our history and create a better tomorrow of China-Argentina and China-Latin America relations.

After President Hu Jintao finished his speech, the conference hall was once more filled with warm applause for a long period of time.

Chairman of the upper house Scioli said in the welcome speech that the exchange of visits between the heads of governments of Argentina and China this year indicates that the bilateral ties have got mature. The lower and upper houses of the Argentina parliament appreciate China for its support for Argentina on major issues concerning Argentine territory and sovereignty, highly compliment the increasingly important role of China in the international community and hope to strengthen the friendly cooperative relations with China in the political, economic, cultural and educational areas.

Before the welcome conference commenced, Hu met with Argentine Vice President and Chairman of the upper house Daniel Osvaldo Scioli and lower house Chairman Eduardo Oscar Camano and briefed them on the stable development of China-Argentina relations and the achievements of his visit. He expressed confidence that with the implementation of the common consensus and cooperation documents reached during this visit China-Argentina strategic partnership will surely gain better development. When talking about the exchange of legislatures of both countries, Hu said that in recent years, the friendly exchange and cooperation between the legislatures of China and Argentina continuously expand, which is beneficial to enhancing mutual understanding and promoting the development of bilateral relations. He welcomes more Argentine officials to visit China in a bid to enhance the contact and cooperation of the legislatures of both countries.