Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a regular press conference in Beijing Thursday that Wang Yi, vice-foreign minister and head of the Chinese government delegation for border negotiations with Vietnam and his Vietnamese counterpart Le Cong Phung would attend the ceremony.

This would be the second major event after the unveiling ceremony for a marker stone on the Guangxi section of the Sino-Vietnamese border last December under the border treaty signed by the Joint Committee on Border Surveying Between China and Vietnam in December 1999, Liu said.

It signified yet another concrete step taken in border surveying between China and Vietnam and would help advance the program's overall progress, Liu said. It would be also of positive and practical significance for maintaining peace and stability in the border areas and promoting economic development and personnel exchanges between the two countries.

China and Vietnam were linked by mountains and water and had close ties, Liu said. At present, bilateral relations maintained sound progress, with widening exchanges and cooperation in various fields.

The Communist Party and state leaders of the two countries had kept in close contact, playing vital roles in the extensive development of bilateral ties.

Liu said that the general secretaries of the Communist Party central committees of both countries had exchanged visits since the end of last year. They exchanged views on further progress in wide-ranging bilateral ties in the new century, reached a broad consensus and boosted mutual trust, friendship and cooperation.

Noting that the two countries had similar domestic conditions, Liu said both followed the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist path as they engaged in reform and opening-up to the outside world and economic development.

China hoped that the friendly cooperation between the two countries would grow on the basis of the five principles of peaceful co-existence, Liu said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2002)