He hoped the two countries would maintain high-level contact and further expand practical cooperation and exchanges in various fields, especially in the fields of politics, energy, finance, culture, education and media.

He promised to push for new progress in the work of the strategic work panel of the two countries.

The prime minister said Canada highly regards the important role China plays in the world economy and is ready to strengthen strategic cooperation with China in the economic and trade area and jointly oppose protectionism.

He hoped both countries would strengthen cooperation on public health, climate change and other global issues, and step up coordination within such multilateral frameworks as the G20.

Harper stressed that Canada firmly and unequivocally sticks to the one-China policy and regards mutual respect of each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity as the basis for handling bilateral links.

The two leaders also exchanged views on the upcoming G20 summit and other international and regional issues of common concern.

After the talks, they witnessed the signing of cooperation documents between the two countries, which included the agreement to designate Canada as a destination of overseas travel by Chinese citizens.

At present, China is Canada's second largest trading partner while Canada is China's 13th trading partner. In 2009, two-way trade between the two countries reached 29.7 billion U.S. dollars.

In the first four months of this year, bilateral trade stood at 10.2 billion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 19 percent.

Following his stay in Ottawa, Hu will travel on to Toronto for the G20 summit over the weekend, which aims to secure the world economic recovery and address economic challenges and risks.

Established in 1999, the G20 consists of Argentina, Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United States and the European Union.