Romanian President Traian Basescu on Tuesday said ties with China occupy a leading position in Romania's foreign policy, and Romania will make efforts to carry its friendly ties with China into the future.

Romania has managed to keep a stable political and state-to-state relationship with China, despite changes in Romania's social system, said the president at a ceremony of the publication of "Historical documents of Romanian-Chinese Relations: 1880-1974" at the Romanian Academy of Sciences.

Romania has always been a reliable friend of China in the European continent, he said.

Basescu said that in its relations with China, Romania has not just pursued economic interests to balance its trade, but it has put more emphasis on developing its traditional friendship with China and consistently pushing ahead the bilateral political and national relations.

For his part, Chinese ambassador to Romania Xu Jian said the documents collection tracing back on the history of the bilateral ties is another example of the traditional friendship between the two peoples.

Xu said Romania is China's reliable cooperation partner, and China will make utmost efforts to develop friendly cooperative ties with Romania.

(Xinhua News Agency December 14, 2005)