PARIS - China's Vice Premier Ma Kai has hailed the positive and fruitful economic and financial partnership between China and France, calling for a closer bilateral cooperation to harness wider business opportunities.

Ma, who is currently in Paris for the second China-France High- Level Economic and Financial Dialogue, made the remarks while meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday.

China and France have already realized encouraging results in terms of economic, trade and financial cooperation, but there is still a huge untapped potential, he said.

Noting that bilateral economic and trade partnership has entered a new phase, Ma said China hopes that both sides will increase investment to promote trade and jointly explore third markets with a view to making their pie of cooperation in the fields of trade and investment still bigger.

He said for 50 years, bilateral relations have well progressed and have achieved successful results.

Fabius hailed the close Sino-French relations which "continue to progress." He also noted "satisfactory " bilateral cooperation in a series of areas, including nuclear energy, aviation, automotive, food, environmental protection and urbanization.

The French top diplomat expressed hope that both sides will further strengthen mutual investment and expand their trade.

As Paris was preparing to host an international conference on climate change by the end of next year, Fabius hopes this conference will be a success with China's support.

For his part, the Chinese vice premier stressed that China is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with France in climate change response.