国内英语新闻:Chinese vice premier meets Serbian president on expanding pragmatic cooperation

BELGRADE, June 23 (Xinhua) -- China and Serbia will steadily advance the construction of key cooperative projects such as railway, road and power station in order to achieve even greater social and economic benefits, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic agreed as they met here Monday evening.

Zhang conveyed the cordial greetings and good will from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nikolic and welcomes him to go to China to attend the commemorating activities on the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people's war in resistance against Japanese aggression in the world war against fascism.

Nikolic asked Zhang to convey his greetings and best wishes to President Xi, saying he looks forward to attending the commemorating activities.

Zhang said Nikolic's successful visit to China in 2013 and the joint declaration on deepening strategic partnership he signed with President Xi have lifted bilateral relations to a new height.

He said China is ready to work with Serbia to further deepen existing cooperation and advance the strategic partnership to a new stage.

He called for the two sides to lift the level of pragmatic cooperation by actively carrying out cooperation on transfer of manufacturing capacity, equipment industry and trade of farm produce.

"China encourages its companies to invest and set up business in Serbia," Zhang said.

Nikolic spoke highly about China's achievement in development and thanked China for truthful cooperation with Serbia. He said Serbia is working on creating a sound investment environment and welcomes Chinese companies to invest in the country.

Nikolic expressed the readiness to strengthen cooperation with China in the areas of infrastructure, farm produce processing, clean energy and construction of industrial parks.