The Chinese and Russian parliaments decided to keep a long-term mechanism for a cooperative commission between the two parliaments, said a press release on Wednesday.

China's National People's Congress (NPC) and the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) agreed to take the mechanism as a platform for implementing consensus of leaders of both countries and giving more and better advices for the healthy and steady development of bilateral relations for the next ten years, said the release issued by the NPC.

The NPC and the Russian State Duma held the second meeting of their cooperative commission from Monday to Tuesday in Beijing, co-chaired by NPC Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo and Russian State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and top advisor Jia Qinglin met with Gryzlov respectively on Tuesday.

The inter-parliamentary meeting was a great success, said the release, describing it as having broad topics, rich contents and constructive and practical discussion.

The two sides agreed to strengthen exchanges on lawmaking, consummate legal basis for bilateral relations and give full play to roles of various special committees of both parliaments, and touched on bilateral relations, parliamentary exchanges, mutual investment, local-level cooperation, environmental protection and labor cooperation.

The Russian side stressed that the Russian government and State Duma have a firm and consistent position on the Taiwan issue, that there is only one China in the world and the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government that represents the whole China, and Taiwan and Tibet are inalienable parts of Chinese territory.

Some 20 members of both sides attended the meeting, and the two sides agreed to hold the third meeting next year in Russia.

Invited by Wu, Gryzlov arrived in Beijing on Monday. He left for Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, on Wednesday for a visit there.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2007)