Chinese President Hu Jintao and re-elected US President George W. Bush will hold a one-to-one summit meeting on the sideline of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting to be held in Chile this month.

The two presidents will exchange views on promoting Sino-US strategic cooperative partnership. Foreign affairs departments of the two countries are working out the details for the arrangement of the summit, said Zhou Wenzhong, vice minister of China's Foreign Ministry.

"The summit between President Hu and President Bush is of great significance to the bilateral relations in the coming four years," Zhou added.

US President Bush won a second 4-year term following a long election night Wednesday. Chinese President Hu Jintao early Thursday morning sent a congratulatory message to Bush, expressing his hope to work together with Bush to push forward Sino-US relations.

Since Bush assumed presidency, China and the United States have made significant progress in cooperation in various fields, bringing substantial benefits to both countries and playing a positive role in promoting peace and development in Asia Pacific and the world as whole, Hu said in the message.

"Both China and the United States are great countries and share a wide range of common interests and basis for cooperation," Hu said.

"I look forward to continuing to work together with you to further promote the development of the constructive cooperative relations between China and the United States" to benefit the people of the two countries and rest of the world, the message said.

President Hu will kick off a visit to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Cuba from November 11 to 23. He will also attend the 12th informal leadership meeting of APEC which will be held in Santiago, capital of Chile.

(China Daily November 5, 2004)