Gas deal tops agenda in Howard, Jiang talks

Gas deal tops agenda in Howard, Jiang talks

Visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard Thursday met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and pushed again for a multi- billion-dollar gas deal.

On the second full day of a three-day visit to China, Howard had lunch with Jiang in the southwestern city of Chongqing, officials traveling with the Australian leader said.

Howard told reporters later that he had used his meeting with Jiang to argue the case for an Australian-led bid for a contract worth up to US$14 billion to supply liquefied natural gas to booming Guangdong province over 30 years.

Issues such as Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, or the human rights situation in China did not come up in the meeting with Jiang, he said.

Howard met with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Wednesday, and later told journalists he had put Australia's case for the gas project "very strongly".

Earlier Wednesday, he told students at the secretive Communist Party school on the outskirts of Beijing that Australia could guarantee security of supply for decades to come.

Jiang told Howard that China was ready to make "concerted efforts" with Australia to promote bilateral relations, which were established 30 years ago, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"(History) has proven that the establishment of long-standing and developing bilateral relations is in the interest of both peoples," Jiang said according to Xinhua. --AFP