South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his visiting Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on Monday issued a joint summit statement, vowing to significantly deepen bilateral political, economic, cultural and personnel exchanges, Yonhap news agency reported today. The leaders' accord in this context is a follow up on the two countries' strategic cooperative partnership agreed on in May, the South Korean news agency said. Hu arrived in South Korea earlier on Monday for a two-day state visit, his second to the country while in office. His first visit to South Korea as president was in November 2005. According to the joint statement released after their one-and-a-half-hour summit talks at Lee's office, the leaders agreed to open the first high-level strategic dialogue between the foreign ministries of the two countries this year and stimulate exchange visits between ranking defense officials. "South Korea and China agreed to reinforce mutual communication on external policies and international affairs through regular dialogue channels between their top diplomats and defense officials, " said the statement. The joint statement also focused significantly on boosting bilateral economic and commercial cooperation, as Lee and Hu agreed to increase the annual volume of two-way trade to US$200 billion by 2010, two years ahead of the previous target year.
