¡¡¡¡BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- President Jiang Zemin told a visiting Iranian parliament speaker Thursday that China and Iran enjoy broad prospects in developing bilateral relations in various fields, especially in economic and trade expansion.

¡¡¡¡President Jiang made the remark when meeting with Mahdi Karrubi, speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran on Thursday.

¡¡¡¡He said China's cooperation with Iran has been developing rapidly based on the traditional friendship between the two peoples that has existed for thousands of years.

¡¡¡¡"China's economic and trade engagement with Iran has kept growing in scale with wide prospects," Jiang noted.

¡¡¡¡The Chinese side is willing to further upgrade its coordination and cooperation with the Iranian side on various international issues, as both shoulder the heavy task of promoting world peace and development in the capacity of developing nations, the president said.

¡¡¡¡Speaker Karrubi said he agreed with President Jiang regarding bilateral relations, and that both countries share many identical or similar views on many international issues, and that bilateral ties will further advance under the direction of top leaders of both countries.

¡¡¡¡With the attention of the leaders of the two countries, Karrubinoted, bilateral cooperation in all spheres would continue to forge forward. Enditem