Parliamentary cooperation between Russia, China at its best ever: lawmaker

Parliamentary cooperation between Russia and China is at an all-time high and the two countries' parliaments will strengthen bilateral ties via talks, a committee chief of the lower house of the Russian parliament has said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Russia-China relations have never been better, as well as collaboration between Russia's State Duma, or lower house of parliament, and China's National People's Congress (NPC), Vyacheslav Nikonov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, told Xinhua in an interview.

Top legislators of both sides will hold more talks in order to strengthen bilateral cooperation at the upcoming parliamentary forum of the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Moscow, he said.

Cooperation between the two parliaments goes back a long way and has broad prospects, Nikonov said. Both sides are making more efforts in a wide range of areas such as economy, security, education and culture as well as on Asia-Pacific issues, in a bid to consolidate the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, he said.

Speaking of the first BRICS parliamentary forum, Nikonov said Russia is committed to intensifying the parliamentary exchanges among BRICS members, with a view to playing an active role in common economic development.

He voiced the hope that a cooperation mechanism be established within the framework of BRICS to boost the group's parliamentary cooperation.

At the invitation of Chairwoman of Russia's Federation Council Valentina Matvienko and State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang will visit Russia in the coming days to attend a meeting of the cooperation committee of the NPC, the Russian State Duma and the BRICS parliamentary forum. Endi