Phnom Penh (VNA) ဣ- Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Cambodia on October 13 for a two-day state visit to the Southeast Asian nation with the aim of further solidifying the traditional friendship and deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.

This is Xi's first trip to Cambodia as the President of China. The Chinese leader is scheduled to meet Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk and Prime Minister Hun Sen. The two countries will reach a series of cooperation deals to consolidate their development strategies and boost the bilateral cooperation. Cambodia and China set up diplomatic ties in 1958. On the economic front, China is now Cambodia's largest trade partner and foreign investor, with bilateral collaboration expanding in such areas as trade, investment, connectivity, energy resources and infrastructure construction. Two-way trade reached 4.43 billion USD in 2015, indicating an annual growth of 17.95 percent, according to China's Commerce Ministry. After Cambodia, Xi is scheduled to travel to Bangladesh and the western Indian state of Goa, where he will attend a summit of the emerging-market bloc of BRICS, which groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, slated for this weekend.-VNA