Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa met separately with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Tuesday, with both sides pledging to further promote relations between the two countries.

Sri Lanka has attached utmost importance to developing ties with China as it is a trustworthy and long-term cooperative partner of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan president said, expressing gratitude to China for its support for Sri Lanka's socio-economic development.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa said Sri Lank is ready to enhance Sri Lanka-China ties, strengthen bilateral win-win cooperation in various fields and actively promote the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative to build regional shipping and logistic hubs.

The prime minister said Sri Lanka welcomes more Chinese tourists as well as more Chinese investments.

China is willing to further consolidate political mutual trust, strengthen high-level exchanges and deepen practical cooperation between the two countries, so as to push for further promotion of their strategic cooperative partnership.

China and Sri Lanka should speed up the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and Wang also called on the two sides to strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the fields of agriculture, technology, education and tourism.

He said China will encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Sri Lanka and help the country build shipping and logistic hubs as well as industrial and financial centers in the region.

China-Sri Lanka cooperation has never targeted at any third party and also it should not be affected by any third party, Wang said, stressing that deepening cooperation between China and Sri Lanka will surely be conducive to the peace and development of the region.