Beijing /MONTSAME/ Mongolia and China have agreed to advance bilateral relations in several spheres at a high-level meeting held in Chinese Bo’ao town.

Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh paid a courtesy call on President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping on April 10 in the course of his official visit to the country. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia.

The Prime Minister congratulated the Chinese President on his re-election and conveyed President Kh.Battulga’s greetings. The Prime Minister affirmed Mongolia’s foreign policy priority to nurture a mutually beneficial and friendly relationship with China, while noting the Government’s commitment to the strengthening and enrichment of Mongolia-China comprehensive strategic partnership with new impetus.

While reciprocating President Kh.Battulga’s greetings, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s consistent respect of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Mongolia and stressed that China attaches importance to its ties with Mongolia in line with its foreign policy principles.

The sides expressed mutual commitment to reinforce political trust based on respect of each other’s core interests and to maintain the frequency of high-level visits. The sides agreed to mark the 70th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations with a grand celebration next year.

While acknowledging wide opportunities to boost bilateral trade and economic cooperation, the sides agreed on several actions to be taken to reach the goal to increase bilateral trade turnover to USD 10 billion by 2020 – intensify cooperation mechanisms, effectively utilize the channel of exchange through the Mongolia-China Expo, reduce non-tariff barriers in trade, activate cooperation in agriculture, tourism and industrial capacity and accelerate the progress of China-funded projects.

The Chinese side expressed its readiness to focus on the establishment of an agreement on energy cooperation and ratification of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Railway Transit Transportation. The sides noted how the Chinese Belt and Road initiative opens new opportunities to deepen bilateral cooperation and agreed to work on correlating Mongolia’s Development Road programme to the initiative.

The sides also emphasized the role of active cultural and educational exchange and people-to-people relations in bilateral cooperation, expressing mutual readiness to enforce the implementation of actions agreed by the Mongolia-China Humanitarian Exchange Council.

The sides exchanged views on other matters such as regional and trilateral cooperation with Russia. They appreciated positive outlook of the Korean Peninsula and the activation of high-level dialogue between nations in the region, expressing willingness to put efforts into the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Furthermore, the sides also touched upon bilateral cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and agreed to cooperate on Mongolia’s participation in the SCO Summit to be held in Qingdao and organizing a high-level meeting of heads of state of Mongolia, China and Russia during the Summit.

Kh.Aminaa