Gu Xiulian, vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), said here Friday that China hopes to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with Argentina.

Gu made the remarks when meeting with Argentine President of Chamber of Deputies Alberto Edgardo Balestrini.

She said that over the past 35 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, bilateral relations in various fields have developed steadily.

In 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner exchanged state visits and decided to build Sino-Argentine strategic partnership, thus turning over a new page in bilateral ties.

The senior Chinese legislator went on to say that China still hopes to have multi-channel and multi-level exchanges with Argentina to deepen mutual understanding and expand substantial cooperation.

Gu, who arrived in Argentina on Friday for a three-day visit, also said that China welcomes more Argentine enterprises to invest in China.

For his part, Balestrini praised China's economic achievement and said his country hopes to learn from the experiences of China's economic development.

Argentina is the last leg of Gu's four-nation South America tour, which has already taken her to Dominica, Grenada and Guyana.