Modi meets Chinese President, says this year was good, next will be better (Lead)

Buenos Aires : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit here and said this year had been very good for bilateral ties and that the coming year will be better.

He said the informal meeting at Wuhan in April this year had proved to be a milestone and had opened new avenues of cooperation.

"This year has been very good and important for our bilateral relations. I am confident that the coming year would be even better. The informal summit between the two leaders in Wuhan proved to be a milestone for the two countries. This gave a new momentum to our engagement," Modi said during his meeting with Jinping.

He said India was very eager to host the Chinese President for an informal summit next year.

Modi said top-level meetings between the leaders of the two countries have have helped in keeping up the momentum of bilateral ties.

He said such review meetings have been held in the past at Qingdao and Johansburg and Friday's meeting will give a filip to "closer development partnership" in the future.

This was the fourth meeting between the two world leaders in a year.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the two leaders had a warm and productive meeting and discussed joint efforts to enhance mutual trust.

"Working together to strengthen the Wuhan spirit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a warm and productive meeting with President Xi of China, their 4th this year, on sidelines of G20 summit. Discussed joint efforts to further enhance mutual trust and friendship across all aspects of our ties," he said in a tweet.