On June 18, 2009, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Chairman of the Russian State Duma Boris Gryzlov in Moscow.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Hu said, hailing the sound and fast development of bilateral ties. Mutual political trust, strategic cooperation and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries have been brought to a higher level, he said. New breakthrough has been made in energy cooperation with the reciprocal language years going on smoothly. The great significance of China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation has gone well beyond the bilateral context. It has not only brought about tangible benefits to both countries and their peoples, but also become an important force for peace and development of the region and the world at large. China is ready to work with Russia to seize the opportunity and meet the challenges so as to push bilateral strategic cooperation to a higher level, Hu said.

There have been close exchanges and fruitful cooperation between the legislative bodies of the two countries in recent years, which has given an impetus to the development of bilateral relations as a whole, Hu said. The Chinese president made a three-point proposal for the two legislative bodies to make greater efforts in the interests of the overall bilateral relationship. Firstly, the two legislative bodies should enhance cooperation so as to lay a firm legal foundation for further development of bilateral relations. Secondly, there should be more exchanges and cooperation between different committees of the two legislative bodies. Thirdly, more efforts should be made to consolidate and expand the social foundation for developing the bilateral friendship for generations to come. China will, as always, support the cooperation between the two legislative bodies so as to build up mutual understanding and traditional friendship between the two peoples and make new contributions to the bilateral strategic partnership of cooperation through exchanges at various levels and in different forms.

Gryzlov said President Hu's successful visit to Russia fully indicated China and Russia have established very friendly strategic relations. Russia's State Duma will contribute to the friendship between the two countries. The Russian State Duma has maintained close contacts with China's National People's Congress (NPC) and is ready to discuss with it how the legislative bodies can play a role in coping with the global financial crisis. The national theme year activities have been successfully held between the two countries and the events of reciprocal language years are now underway with closer exchanges between the peoples of the two countries, he said, adding that all this shows a high level of bilateral ties. It is important to encourage cooperation between different localities of the two countries, in particular that between Russia's Far East and China's northeastern region, he said. The two legislative bodies should play an important role in promoting this kind of cooperation, he said, expressing the willingness of the Russian lower house of parliament to make greater contributions to promoting economic and trade cooperation between the two sides. Gryzlov also expressed full agreement with Hu's suggestions on enhancing legislative cooperation between the two countries.

Hu pointed out that the Russian Language Year in China is in full swing, expressing belief that next year's Chinese Language Year in Russia will also be a great success. The leaders of the two countries attach great importance to local-level exchanges and will focus on cooperation between Russia's Far East and China's northeastern region. Both sides agreed to accelerate the formulation of an outline on economic cooperation between the two regions so as to promote bilateral economic and trade cooperation at local levels.

On the same day, Hu also met with the staff of the Chinese Embassy in Russia and representatives from China-invested organizations, Chinese students and overseas Chinese.

Ling Jihua, Wang Huning and Dai Bingguo attended the above activities.