KUALA LUMPUR — Visiting State Councilor Yang Jiechi met with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Kuala Lumpur on May 10, as both agreed to strengthen ties and cooperation between the two countries.

Bilateral ties between China and Malaysia have been developing fast and steadily in recent years, yielding fruitful results, Yang said, pointing out that leaders of the two countries held a series of important talks last year.

China attaches great importance to the bilateral ties with Malaysia, and is willing to work with the Malaysian side to implement the important consensus on pragmatic cooperation on all fronts reached between leaders of the two countries, Yang said.

China is willing to work with Malaysia to increase high-level exchanges, strengthen strategic communication, actively promote synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and Malaysia’s development strategy, push for cooperation in areas like production capacity and infrastructure, increase people-to-people exchange for the healthy and stable development of the China- Malaysia relations in the long term, he added.

For his part, Najib spoke highly of the importance of the bilateral ties between Malaysia and China. The two countries have set a great example of bilateral ties with close exchanges among leaders, increasing political mutual trust as well as fruitful economic and cultural cooperation, he said.

Malaysia is willing to actively expand opportunities for cooperation with China from a long-term perspective, continue to strengthen cooperation in bilateral trade and investment, finance, tourism, among others, in order to promote a stronger development in China- Malaysia ties, said the prime minister.

During his visit in Malaysia, Yang also met with Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman and Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.