Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovich expressed here Thursday the willingness to lift the friendly and cooperative China-Ukraine relationship to a new level.

They also promised to strive to increase two-way trade to $10 billion by 2012. According to official statistics, trade between China and Ukraine topped $3.3 billion in the first half of the year, up 31.3 percent year on year.

The two presidents attended the signing ceremony of a dozen documents on bilateral cooperation involving such areas as official relations, finance, infrastructure development, aerospace, business, customs and quarantine, railway lines and electricity.

According to a contract signed Thursday afternoon, Chinese companies will undertake the construction of a $950-million city rail line connecting the airport in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine.

President Hu urged the two sides to earnestly implement the cooperative projects that they have agreed upon and to actively explore new projects.

Yanukovich is in Beijing for his first ever visit to China. He is also the first Ukrainian President to visit China since 2002.

During the talks, Hu expressed readiness to further deepen and upgrade bilateral ties, as China has always placed importance on its relations with Ukraine, maintaining that the two sides should view bilateral ties from a strategic and long-term perspective.

He expressed the readiness to work with the Ukrainian side to strengthen political dialogue and consultation through exchanges and inter-government contact.

Hu said China will continue to strengthen cooperation with Ukraine in regional and international organizations to jointly promote global peace, stability and prosperity.

Yanukovich said the two sides should work together to tap into the potential of bilateral strategic cooperation.

He said the two sides should strengthen political dialogue, boost exchanges of high-level officials and increase exchanges between political parties and legislatures.

Yanukovich expressed readiness to expand bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, economy, investment, finance, science, technology, infrastructure development, agriculture and aerospace.

Both Hu and Yanukovich said the consensus they reached during a meeting at the nuclear security summit in Washington in April added fresh impetus to bilateral ties.

During his stay in Beijing, Yanukovich will also meet with top Chinese legislator Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Yanukovich will fly to Shanghai Saturday to attend the 2010 World Expo.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2010)