Chinese top legislator, Wu Bangguo, met in Beijing on Wednesday with visiting speaker of the Slovak National Council, Pavol Paska, calling on the two sides to step up inter-parliamentary cooperation to further boost bilateral relations.

Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, highlighted China-Slovakia relations, noting that the ties already entered into a phase of development.

Citing Slovakia as one of the fastest growing member states in the European Union (EU) and China as the biggest developing country in the world, Wu said that the two share a solid foundation for further cooperation.

He added, China is willing to explore new approaches to expand cooperation in an aim to optimize the two-way trade structure and increase mutual understanding between the two businesses.

"We should give full play to the two business communities and help them promote bilateral trade relations to a higher level," Wu said.

Paska said that Slovakia attaches great importance to its ties with China and hopes to learn China's successful ways of boosting national development. It also wants to forge cooperation with China in fields such as infrastructure.

He noted that Slovakia, as a new EU member state, is willing to play a role of bridging the EU-China strategic partnership for further development, reiterating that Slovak parliament and government will continue to cohere to the one-China policy.

The two sides also exchanged their views on inter-parliamentary cooperation, agreeing to push forward collaboration among parliamentary special groups and exchanges of the young parliament members in an effort to generate contribution to the new growth of the bilateral relations.

Paska arrived here Monday for a 5-day visit to China as Wu's guest.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2008)