Hu made the remarks Wednesday at a meeting in Beijing with Than Shwe, Chairman of Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council, who arrived in Beijing Monday for a six-day state visit to China at the invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Hu said China's new leadership would continue to follow guidelines for good-neighborly friendship and cooperation, and would always consider Myanmar a good neighbor, friend and partner.

Hu said in the more than 50 years of diplomatic ties, China-Myanmar relations, based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, had withstood the test of international and domestic changes, and made steady and vigorous progress.

Bilateral cooperation in various fields had continued to grow and had reaped positive results, Hu said.

He voiced China's appreciation for the Myanmar government's one-China policy and support for China's reunification.

He stressed that to further strengthen good-neighborly friendship and cooperation was in the fundamental interests of the two peoples and their common wish, and conducive to regional peace, stability and development.

Than Shwe said Myanmar valued its fraternal friendship with China, regarded it as the most reliable of friends and would educate younger generations to pass the torch of bilateral friendship from generation to generation.

The Myanmar government and people were concentrating on national reconciliation and building the economy, and Myanmar's efforts had proved positive in a variety of ways with people's lives and conditions improved, he said.

He thanked China for helping in Myanmar's development, saying it had played an important role in the country's economic growth.

Myanmar would continue to abide by the one-China policy, support China's reunification and further boost its overall cooperation with China, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2003)