ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Top finance officials from China and the United States met on Friday to discuss bilateral financial and economic cooperation and agreed to boost dialogue in this field.

    During a meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing said cooperation between the Chinese Finance Ministry and the U.S. Treasury had been fruitful in recent years.

    Finance officials will meet at a session of the China-U.S. joint economic committee later this year to discuss financial and economic cooperation and financial reforms, Jin said, adding that the discussion should contribute to the further growth of China-U.S. relations, as was agreed by the top leaders of the two countries during Chinese President Hu Jintao's U.S. visit in April.

    The Chinese finance minister is here to attend a dialogue on Saturday between finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized nations and those of six other countries --China, India, Brazil, Australia, South Korea and Nigeria.

    Snow, for his part, said the economic relationship between the United States and China was the most important economic relationship in the world and the smooth development of the ties benefited the people of both countries.

    China was playing an increasingly key role in international affairs and any discussion between the G8 or G7 and other countries would be incomplete without China's participation, Snow said.

    Earlier in the day, Jin also discussed financial cooperation with Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and expressed his hope that China and Russia could enhance dialogue on microeconomic policy through finance a ministers' discussion mechanism to boost cooperation between the two countries.

    G8 finance ministers gathered on Friday in this northern Russian city for a two-day meeting that is expected to focus on discussion on global economic growth, the impact of oil prices on growth, and energy security. Enditem