Vice-Premier Han Zheng on Wednesday called on China and Singapore to boost the quality and level of cooperation in various fields, including epidemic response and green development.

Han made the remarks in a video talk with his Singaporean counterpart Heng Swee Keat.

As close neighbors and partners, China and Singapore have maintained close high-level exchanges and enjoyed mutual political trust, Han said.

The latest interaction between the top leaders of the two countries took place in October, when President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Han said China welcomed Singapore to deeply participate in the process of the country's building of a new development paradigm and conducting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. He also called for Singapore to jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade, he said.

Han said he hoped the two countries can enhance anti-pandemic cooperation, such as research and production for the COVID-19 vaccine and drugs. He also expressed willingness to expand cooperation in these fields, including digital economy and green development.

Heng said China's development had entered a new stage, which has brought huge opportunities to cooperation between the two countries.

He echoed Han's remarks, saying Singapore stood ready to conduct close high-level exchanges and leverage roles of bilateral cooperation mechanisms.

Singapore would deepen cooperation in various fields, promote free trade and strengthen people-to-people exchanges to create a better future for peoples of the two countries and the region, he added.

He also wished the Beijing Winter Olympic Games a complete success.

The two leaders also co-chaired four virtual meetings of the bilateral cooperation mechanisms, namely the 17th China-Singapore Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation, the 22nd China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Joint Steering Council, the 13th China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City JSC and the 5th China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity JSC.

The two sides comprehensively reviewed the implementation of high-level consensus and the progress of pragmatic cooperation between the two countries, and jointly planned the direction and focus of cooperation in the next phase.