President Hu meets Canadian PM

Chinese President Hu Jintao met Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Saturday in Honolulu, Hawaii, to discuss the development of the strategic partnership between China and Canada.The two leaders are also expected to discuss the world and regional issues of common concern.China and Canada share a long history of friendly exchanges, have a lot of common interests and enjoy broad prospects of cooperation.In June 2010, President Hu paid a state visit to Canada, during which the two sides pledged to promote their strategic partnership and signed a host of cooperation agreements.Meeting with Harper during his visit, President Hu put forward five proposals for further advancing China-Canada relations, including increasing contact at all levels, expanding pragmatic cooperation, stepping up cultural and people-to-people exchanges, enhancing cooperation in global and regional affairs, respecting each other's core interests and major concerns.Leaders of the two countries agreed to strive to boost the volume of two-way trade to 60 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.At present, China is an important trading partner of Canada. In 2010, bilateral trade increase by 24 percent to 37 billion dollars.In the first nine months of this years, trade between China and Canada amounted to 34 billion dollars, up 28 percent over the same period of last year.Hu and Harper are currently in Honolulu for the Economic Leaders Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).