RABAT, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas el Fassi said here on Tuesday that his country is willing to further the bilateral relations with China.

During his meeting with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the capital of Rabat, Fassi said that Morocco cherishes the friendly cooperative relations with China, and is willing to foster bilateral cooperation in various fields to push forward the bilateral relations.

Fassi said that China has made prominent contributions to world civilization and plays an important role in the international arena.

He said the Morocco-China relations have maintained healthy and steady development since the establishment of the diplomatic ties, and have achieved fruitful cooperation in political, economic and other fields.

He said that Morocco and China witness active communication and exchanges between political parties of the two countries and between other circles, noting that the two countries bear the same or similar opinions on international and regional issues.

Morocco highly appreciates the new measures China has adopted in Sino-African cooperation and is willing to enhance cooperation with China within the framework of Sino-African cooperation to push forward Sino-African relations, he said.

The top Chinese diplomat lauded the long-time friendship between Morocco and China.

He said that since the two countries established diplomatic ties 52 years ago, the two peoples have been understanding, supporting and cooperating with each other.

Since entering the new century, the successful exchange of visits between the leaders of the two countries have injected momentum to the traditional friendly relations, and designated a new direction for bilateral cooperation in various fields, said Yang.

Yang said that Morocco and China have enjoyed frequent exchange of high-level visits, continuously deepened economic and trade cooperation, ever increasing cooperation in culture, education, tourism and health, vigorous communication between the two peoples, and good coordination and cooperation on international and regional affairs.

The Chinese government is willing to work together with the Moroccan side to consolidate political mutual trust, maintain communication between senior officials, tap the potential of economic cooperation, promote people-to-people exchanges, boost communication and cooperation on international and regional affairs to push the bilateral friendly cooperative relations to new stages, said the foreign minister.

Yang said that Chinese government highly values the implementation of the follow-up actions of the fourth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), and is willing to work together with Morocco and other FOCAC member countries to fulfill the tasks.

The Chinese foreign minister arrived in Morocco on Monday afternoon for a two-day visit. Yang is on his first official foreign visit of the year that includes five African nations, namely Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Algeria and Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.