By Qin Jize (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-05 07:13

CANBERRA: Australia's Governor-General Michael Jeffery rolled out the red carpet, complete with the traditional presidential greeting and 21-gun salute, to welcome President Hu Jintao last night.

During their meeting, Hu commended the rapid growth of bilateral ties, saying China and Australia are becoming models of friendly co-existence and mutually beneficial cooperation for countries with different social systems.

Hu said he is confident China's comprehensive cooperative relationship with Australia will develop at a fast pace.

Jeffery corroborated Hu, and said frequent high-level exchanges between the two countries have helped strengthen bilateral cooperation and coordination in the fields of trade, energy, education and international affairs.

He urged the two sides to step up efforts in joint research for clean energy and cultivation in arid regions.

Before flying to Australia's capital Canberra, Hu visited Western Australia, focusing his 18-hour stay largely on observing the development of new processing technologies.

The president visited CSIRO's Australian Resources Research Centre yesterday morning, where he saw a petroleum drilling system designed for hard rock or deep earth drilling. He was shown a BHP Billiton minerals processing laboratory, too.

He then visited Rio Tinto's pioneering pig iron plant, HIsmelt, at Kwinana, south of Perth, capital of Western Australia. The plant, co-sponsored by Australia, the US, Japan and China, was built in 2002. It is well known for having a low operating cost and emitting less greenhouse gas than traditional iron-making plants.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh said Hu showed "a lot of interest" in Australian research and development and in Rio's HIsmelt technology, for which Rio has issued two licenses in China.

China is Western Australia's largest export market and its second largest trading partner. In recent years, China and Australia's resource-rich state have carried out a series of large cooperation projects in the fields of energy and natural resources.

Agencies contributed to the story

(China Daily 09/05/2007 page2)