BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislator Wu Bangguo met here on Saturday with some of the dignitaries who came to China to attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony

    These included the President of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania Bogdan Olteanu, Chairman of the EU-China Friendship Group in the European Parliament Nirj Deva, and chairman and chief executive officer of Honeywell Inc. of the United States, Dave Cote. Wu thanked them all for their support to the Beijing Olympic Games

    In a meeting with Olteanu, Wu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said China cherished the traditional friendship with Romania and was ready to strengthen practical cooperation with Romania in various fields, particularly cooperation between the two parliaments, to promote the progress of China-Romania friendly, cooperative ties.

    Olteanu said the Romanian parliament attached great importance to developing friendly exchanges with the NPC. He said he hoped to strengthen exchanges between the young legislators of both countries.

    While meeting with Deva, Wu said China and the EU had witnessed the continued expansion of strategic partnership and their common interests had been increasing. He said he hoped the mechanism of regular exchanges between NPC and the European Parliament would be brought into full play.

    "China welcomes more European legislators to visit China to have a first-hand and objective understanding of China," he added.

    Deva said the EU-China Friendship Group in the European Parliament was ready to play an active role in enhancing understanding and friendship between the European and Chinese peoples.

    When meeting with Cote, Wu said China and the United States share broad common interests. He said the two economies were complementary and there was great potential for cooperation.

    "To expand China-U.S. reciprocal cooperation in economy and trade is in the common interests of both sides and conducive to the China-U.S. constructive ties of cooperation," Wu noted.

    Cote said Honeywell would continue to strengthen cooperation with Chinese enterprises and make unremitting efforts for the development of U.S.-China economic and trade cooperation and bilateral ties.

    The Beijing Olympics opened on Friday night, drawing the attendance of the heads of state and government and representatives of royal families.