Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi, meeting with the country’s leaders and promoting his Belt and Road Initiative.

CGTN’s Li Jiejun reports.

After four years of construction, the Vietnam-China Friendship building in Hanoi opened on Sunday afternoon. With its opening, the center takes on a special role as a place to conduct cultural exchange activities between China and Vietnam.

Designed to look like a lotus – the national flower of Vietnam – the building will be a landmark. Not only for its architecture, but also as a symbol between the traditional friendship of the two countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony on what was his first overseas trip since being re-elected as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.

Xi held bilateral talks with his counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The Chinese leader also met the chairwoman of Vietnam’s national assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. His day ended with a banquet hosted by Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.

Since 2015, China and Vietnam have made progress on the strategic alignment of their development initiatives: China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and Vietnam’s “Two Corridors and One Economic Circle” plan.

“China is one of the countries which is most willing to promote trade liberalization,” Tran Viet Thai of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam said. “Vietnam, as the host country of the 2017 APEC summit, will continue promoting trade liberalization with other countries.

China has been Vietnam’s biggest trading partner for 13 consecutive years, while Vietnam is China’s largest trading partner within Southeast Asia.