Leaders of top Chinese legislature and South African National Assembly reached agreements on building stronger legislative ties on Tuesday.

The agreements came out of the talks between Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and South Africa’s National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete. They cover the two legislative bodies’ role in seeking strong political relations, mutually beneficial trade and economic collaboration, solid people-to-people ties and close cooperation on international issues.

The talks are also part of the third meeting of the regular exchange mechanism between the NPC and South Africa’s National Assembly, which Zhang said aim to enhance the legislative cooperation and implement the consensus between the leaders of the two countries.

Zhang called for the two legislative bodies to make good use of the exchange mechanism and lay a solid political cornerstone of China-South Africa relations.

He pledged to work with the South African National Assembly to review the legal documents concerning bilateral cooperation and create a good legal environment for business collaboration and people exchanges.

Mbete, who is on a week-long China visit, said the cooperation plan for the next five to ten years reached by the two presidents has injected a new vitality into South Africa-China all-round strategic partnership.

She called on the exchange and cooperation between the two legislative bodies to stay in tune with the growth of the state-to-state relations.

She pledged the South African National Assembly’s commitment to working with the NPC to implement the consensus of presidents, share more experience on state governance, legislature and supervision and seek more coordination in multilateral parliamentary organizations.