DUSHANBE, June 15, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- President Emomali Rahmon met with his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s Sverdlovsk region today morning, according to presidential press service.

In the course of the talks, the two discuss the current level of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and China in different fields.

During the meeting, it was noted that a two-way trade between Tajikistan and Chine last year amounted to 250 million U.S. dollars and over the first quarter of this year, Tajik-Chinese trade has risen 80 percent in comparison with the same period of 2008.

Rahmon and Hu noted that agreements reached between their countries were being implemented successfully.  They, in particular, pointed out a good level of cooperation on implementation of projects for rehabilitation of the highway Dushanbe-Danghara-Kulob-Darvoz-Khorog-Murgab-Kulma as well as construction of a new heat and power station in Dushanbe working on coal, hydropower plant Nourobod-1 in eastern Tajikistan, and a new cement plant with capacity of 1 million tons of cement per year in Khatlon province.

The two considered it necessary to set up a joint investment fund of Tajikistan and China, the press services said.