Top legislator Wu Bangguo on Monday held talks in Montevideo
with Uruguay's National Congress President Rodolfo Gustavo Nin
Novoa on promotion of bilateral ties.
Novoa, who is also vice president of Uruguay and president of
Senate, said Uruguay highly valued its relations with China and
that he believed Wu's visit would further boost the development of
Uruguay-China ties and parliamentary exchanges.
Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National
People's Congress (NPC), said that parliamentary exchanges play an
irreplaceable role in promoting mutual understanding between the
peoples, as well as enhancing friendly exchanges between the
political parties and increasing pragmatic cooperation in economy
and trade, and other fields.
He said China's NPC hoped to maintain high-level contacts with
Uruguay's National Congress to exchange views on key issues of
common concern.
Wu also expressed his hope that the two legislative bodies would
improve coordination and cooperation in international and regional
parliamentary organizations to promote the democratization of
international relations and jointly safeguard the interests of
developing countries.
For his part, Novoa said he fully agreed with Wu on the
importance of parliamentary exchanges, saying Uruguay's National
Congress was willing to strengthen friendly exchanges with China's
NPC, promote mutual understanding between the two sides, and push
forward cooperation in economy and trade to boost the comprehensive
development of bilateral ties.
The two leaders also discussed international affairs. They
agreed that international relations should be democratized and the
diversity of civilizations in the world should be respected. They
also expressed their support for multi-polarization and opposition
to hegemonism and power politics in any forms.
They also stressed equality among countries, saying that all the
countries in the world, no matter big or small, powerful or weak,
rich or poor, are equal members of the international community.
They agreed that every country has its right to choose its
social system and path of development based on its own situations,
and that a country's internal affairs should be handled by its own
people while international affairs should be solved through
negotiations based on equal footing.
The two also urged the international community to listen more to
the voices of developing countries and take measures to protect
their legitimate rights to push the world economy to develop in a
balanced, stable and mutual-beneficial way.
After talks, Wu and Novoa attended a signing ceremony of 10
bilateral agreements on cooperation in economy and trade.
Wu arrived here on Sunday from Brazil and was expected to leave
Uruguay for Chile on Tuesday, the last leg of his three-nation
South American tour.
(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2006)
