At the invitation of the Indian government, H.E. He Guoqiang, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC), Secretary of the Secretariat, CCCPC and Minister of the Organization Department of CCCPC, led a CPC delegation to India on a goodwill visit from February18 to 20.

On February 19, H. E. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Vice President of India and Chairman of Rajya Sabha met with Minister He and the delegation at his residence. Vice President Shekhawat expressed that the visit of the CPC delegation to India was of great importance which would further the development of bilateral relations. Indo-China relations had been continuously improved and cooperation in economy and trade had been steadily broadened in recent years. India hoped to further enhance exchanges between peoples and develop bilateral friendly cooperation in a comprehensive way on the basis of the friendly contacts between the governments, parties and parliaments of the two countries.

Mr. He noted that the CPC and the Chinese government attached great importance to developing a long-term, stable, healthy and constructive partnership of cooperation with India. The new central leadership of China would broaden exchanges and cooperation with its neighboring countries including India following the principle of building a good-neighborly relationship and partnership with them to jointly create a new situation of peace and development in Asia. He Guoqiang spoke highly of Prime Minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee's stance on China's Tibet during his visit to China last year.

During the visit, Mr. He also met with Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Sushma Swaraj, President of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) M. Venkaiah Naidu and General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

(Chinese Embassy in India)