China and Russia are ready to further enhance their strategic partnership of cooperation, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said?on Wednesday.

"China-Russia relations are in good shape," Yang said in response to a question raised by a Russian journalist at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual parliamentary session. He voiced China's "warm congratulations" for Russia's President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, and the country's high appreciation for outgoing President Vladimir Putin for his great contributions to Sino-Russian relations over the years.

The two countries, in the second decade of their strategic partnership of cooperation, have agreed to push forward bilateral ties in the spirit of the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. "We're confident of the prospects of our relations," said Yang.

He said China and Russia will further boost high-level contacts and exchanges, enhance support for each other, particularly on issues concerning each other's core interests, expand trade and economic cooperation, and enhance cooperation on international and regional affairs so as to further boost world peace and development. The two countries will also enhance exchanges in humanistic sectors and host well the "year of Russian language" in China in 2009 and the "year of Chinese language" in Russia in 2010.

"Many people are learning Chinese nowadays and I hope the journalists here today, foreign ladies and gentlemen, will also study Chinese," said Yang. "Chinese is one of the easiest languages to learn, otherwise it'd be hard to explain why 1.3 billion people choose Chinese as their mother tongue."

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2008)