Vietnam and China "have huge potentials for further speeding up cooperation in the future," said Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang Tuesday ahead of his three-day state visit to China.

The Vietnamese president will kick off his China visit on Wednesday at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"Vietnam and China are close neighboring countries. The two peoples have shared a long-standing traditional friendship," President Sang said in an interview with Xinhua and other Chinese media.

Over the past years, the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership has instantly consolidated and developed, with political exchanges unceasingly enhanced, cooperation in economy, trade and investment, tourism and other fields recorded new development, and people-to-people exchanges expanded both in depth and width, the president said.

At present, the national construction and development of Vietnam and China are facing both opportunities and challenges, he said. To further enhance the development of bilateral ties, he suggested the two countries to try their utmost in the following four aspects:

First, to reinforce the political confidence, most important of which is to maintain and increase the exchange of visits and meetings between the high-ranking officials as well as among ministries or branches and localities of the two countries. Leaders of the two countries should hold regular exchange of visits and meetings with each other in different forms in order to timely set forth major orientations on fostering relations between the two parties and countries.

Second, to consolidate and expand bilateral cooperation of mutual benefits in all fields, especially in economy, trade and investment, science and technology, education and training, and tourism. The two sides should intensify coordination in developing economy and promoting cooperation of mutual benefits in all fields.

Third, to unceasingly inherit and uphold the traditional friendship between the two countries' people, diversify the contents on the exchange of cooperation and friendship among people from all walks of life of the two countries, especially the young people, and further popularize the cause of each country's national development as well as the Vietnam-China friendship.

Fourth, on the basis of the Vietnam-China neighboring friendship, the common concept of the two countries' leaders, and the international laws, and consistently through peaceful measures and friendly consultation, to handle reasonably all differences and issues occurred in relations between the two countries and to maintain the stable circumstance in bilateral ties.

At present, China and Vietnam are both facilitating the cause of reforms and opening-up. The Chinese people are striving to realize the "Chinese Dream," while the Vietnamese people are trying to implement their goals to build Vietnam basically into a modern, industrialized country by 2020.

President Sang said the two countries share the same wish of building a peaceful, stable and prosperous country. The reform and renovation processes in China and Vietnam have strongly boosted development of the two countries, creating a better life for the peoples, contributing to the development and common prosperity in the region and the world, and bringing a higher international status for the two countries.

To further develop, he said Vietnam and China need to keep on further reforms and to identify and overcome the difficulties and challenges in socio-economic development, including the gap between the rich and the poor, environment and climate change, and sustainable development, etc.

He said the Communist Party of Vietnam, the state and the people of Vietnam are trying their best to fulfill the targets of building Vietnam to become a wealthy, strong, democratic, equitable and civilized country, adding he hopes China gain greater achievements and fulfill the target of building a comprehensive well-off society at an early time.

The China-Vietnam economic and trade cooperation has constantly developed, with the two-way trade turnover reaching 50.4 billion U. S. dollars in 2012.

The Vietnamese market and the Chinese market are important to each other, the president said.

He said Vietnam highly appreciates China's large-scale investment projects to Vietnam, which are typical and have state- of-the-art technologies and advanced equipment, especially those in infrastructure, manufacturing and support industries.He said Vietnam wants to export more goods to China, especially agricultural products and seafood.

President Sang said although the bilateral ties have developed smoothly, there have been some complicated and tough issues, such as the land border and demarcation of the Beibu Gulf. During the years, the two sides have had a lot of efforts and valuable experience in handling these issues.

As for the issue of the South China Sea, said the leaders of the two countries had held many sincere and frank talks and reached common consensus of significance in handling the issues, President Sang said.

He said he expects during his visit to China, he will hold sincere and frank talks with the Chinese leaders on setting forth more measures in order to handle reasonably the differences over the seas, contributing to further developing the relations between the two parties and the two countries in a healthy and long-term manner, and to maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea.

"The friendship between Vietnam and China is a common precious asset of the two peoples. It was fostered by the older generations of leaders and peoples of the two countries," the Vietnamese President said. "All of us are responsible for preserving, inheriting and promoting our friendship."

He said the Vietnamese will never forget the precious support rendered by the Chinese to their struggle for national liberation in the past, as well as their national construction at present.

Vietnam attaches great importance to the development of friendly relationship and comprehensive cooperation with China, considering it as a basic, consistent and long-term policy and as a top priority in Vietnam's foreign policy, he said, adding this meets the expectations and common interest of the two peoples.

He hoped the friendly relationship and the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries be passed on from generation to generation.

(Xinhua contributed to the story)