On June 14, 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase.
Nastase took up the post as prime minister of Romania in 2000 and visited China last year. Hu Jintao was pleased to be able to meet his old friend again not long after his last visit to China. He said to Nastase that the past 55 years, in which China and Romania have gone through thick and thin together, has seen bilateral exchanges and cooperation increasingly expanded, mutual support and coordination between the two countries enhanced in the international arena and the traditional friendship between the two peoples further consolidated after various severe tests. Hu reiterated that China attaches great importance to its friendly and cooperative relations with Romania and deems it an important cooperative partner. He added that establishing and developing of comprehensive friendly and cooperative partnership between China and Romania is in the fundamental interest of the two peoples and China would like to work with Romania to push the bilateral friendly and cooperative relations to a new high.
When talking about China-Romania economic and trade relations, Hu indicted that China gives priority to developing economic and trade cooperation with Romania. With the joint efforts by both sides, bilateral trade volume has increased rapidly in recent years with still great potentials yet to be explored and tapped through joint efforts of both sides. China has now formed a market for imports worth around US$500 billion per year. China hopes the two governments will continue their efforts to create better conditions and provide more facilitation for businesses of the two countries to establish direct contact and conduct pragmatic cooperation. China actively supports businesses of the two countries to expand mutual investment and carry out cooperation in hi-tech and other areas.
Nastase indicated that President Hu's visit to Romania, which has further consolidated Romania-China traditional friendship and promoted bilateral cooperation in economy and trade, is an extremely successful one. He said that continuously expanding comprehensive cooperation between Romania and China has won support from various Romanian parties. The Romanian government fully supports cooperation between the two countries in all areas and actively welcomes Chinese businesses to take part in Romania's infrastructure construction.
The two sides also exchanged views on such issues of common interest as situation in Europe, China-EU relations and economic development of China and Romania.
Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, Romanian Minister of State Dan Ioan Popescu and IOAN TALPEŞ as well as some other officials attended the meeting.