Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Tuesday hailed the time-honored friendship between China and Morocco and pledged to advance bilateral ties in the future.

During talks with his Moroccan counterpart, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, Zhu said China and Morocco enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges, and have sympathized with and supported each other in their struggles for national independence and liberation decades ago.

Political ties between the two sides have been healthy since the establishment of diplomatic ties 44 years ago while cooperation in economics, trade, culture, education and health have been fruitful, Zhu said.

Recalling Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to Morocco in October 1999 and the return visit by Moroccan King Mohammed VI last February, Zhu said the two leaders have pointed out the way for further development of Sino-Moroccan ties.

The Chinese government is grateful for Morocco's consistent support for China on the issues of Taiwan and human rights as well as Shanghai's bid for World Expo 2010, Zhu said.

He said both China and Morocco have aspirations to expand political exchanges and economic cooperation between them and share the same goal of promoting South-South cooperation and working for the establishment of a new political and economic world order.

Zhu said bilateral economic and trade cooperation has made progress in recent years and cooperation in fisheries serves as a model of mutually beneficial cooperation.

The premier said China's entry into the World Trade Organization has opened new prospects for cooperation. He said China encourages exchanges and cooperation between the businesses of the two countries.

On China's relations with Africa as a whole, Zhu said China and the vast majority of African countries have profound friendship and good cooperation and have always supported each other in international affairs.

Zhu said Sino-African cooperation has entered a new stage since the first ministerial meeting of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in October 2000. As promised at the meeting, China has remitted 10 billion RMB yuan (about US$1.2 billion) of African debts, Zhu said, adding that China will explore new ways of economic and trade cooperation with Africa on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

Following the talks, the two sides signed five documents on cooperation in economics, technology and culture.

Morocco is the second leg of Zhu's four-nation African tour. After his visit to Algeria, Morocco and Cameroon, he will travel to South Africa for the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2002)