On May 8 local time, President Xi Jinping met with representatives of Russian experts aiding China and their relatives in Moscow.

Xi Jinping extended sincere greetings and good wishes to the representatives of experts and their relatives present on behalf of the Chinese government and people.

Xi Jinping pointed out that in the early years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, when the Chinese people needed help most, nearly 30,000 experts from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) successively participated in the construction to aid China, covering dozens of fields including industry, agriculture, energy, transportation, education, and science and technology, and forged profound friendship with the Chinese people. Ever since 1978, tens of thousands of Russian experts have actively participated in China's cause of reform and opening-up as well as construction of modernization. The Russian experts including the representatives present today are messengers of peace between China and Russia as well as sincere friends of the Chinese people. I hope we could inherit the deep friendship between the two peoples and open up an even better future for China-Russia relations together.

Xi Jinping recalled the touching stories of experts including Ivan Arhipov, former Economic General Counsel of the Government Administration Council and Head of the Soviet experts corps in China, Constantin Silin, the chief designer of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, and Sergei Toropcev, the first foreign Model Worker of Zhejiang Province and winner of the Chinese government's Friendship Award in 1998, all of whom made positive contributions to the construction and development of China. Xi Jinping spoke highly of their noble spirits, superb professionalism, and passionate enthusiasm towards the Chinese people. Xi Jinping said that in China, an old saying goes that "Never forget the well-diggers while drinking the water", and the Chinese people appreciate the experts for their contributions to the construction and development of China.

More than 40 Russian experts and their relatives attended the meeting. Sergey Toroptsev, son of former Soviet building expert and project leader of such construction projects as Beijing and Shanghai Exhibition Halls Toroptsev, and Mijatovic, Director of CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology and winner of the Chinese government's Friendship Award in 2013, delivered speeches successively. They said that they are very excited to be received by President Xi Jinping at the approaching of the 70th anniversary of Russia's victory in the Great Patriotic War. The days when Soviet experts worked together with the Chinese people for construction have left an unforgettable memory and laid the foundation of friendship between the Russian and Chinese people. At present, Russia-China relations are enjoying booming development and the two peoples are seeing increasingly closer communication, which is very gratifying. Russia and China shall be good neighbors and good friends forever.

Wang Huning, Fan Changlong, Li Zhanshu, Yang Jiechi and others were present at the meeting.