VIENTIANE, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and President of Laos Bounnhang Vorachit met here Saturday with Xinhua News Agency President Cai Mingzhao, who came to Vientiane to attend the first Laos-China Belt and Road Cooperation Forum.

Bounnhang congratulated the successful holding of the forum, saying it is a historic event, and embodies the firm cooperative relations between Laos and China as well as the spirit of good neighbors, good friends, good comrades and good partners.

The Lao president said that Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president, paid a successful state visit to Laos in November, and emphasized that the two countries are a community of shared future and should work together for common development and progress.

Bounnhang added that the governments and media sectors of the two countries should join hands for the goal.

For his part, Cai said the leaders of the two countries reached important consensus on further developing China-Laos relations in their meeting in November, and the forum was organized to implement the consensus, and serve as a platform for information exchange and strengthening cooperation between the industries of the two countries.

On Friday, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith met with Cai here in Vientiane. The prime minister spoke highly of the constructive role Xinhua has played in deepening Laos-China traditional friendship and pushing ahead bilateral cooperation, and hoped for strengthened cooperation and exchanges between media sectors of the two countries.