BEIJING, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday sent a congratulatory message to Nguyen Xuan Phuc on his election as Vietnam's state president.

In his message, Xi pointed out that China and Vietnam are socialist neighbors linked by mountains and rivers.

Since last year, the two countries have helped each other and together made major achievements in the COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, Xi said.

With continuous sound development in bilateral relations, the two countries have jointly written a new chapter of China-Vietnam neighborly friendship, Xi said.

Noting that the world today is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, Xi stressed that the China-Vietnam relations and their cause of socialist construction have entered a crucial stage of inheriting the past and ushering in the future.

Saying he attaches great importance to the development of China-Vietnam relations, the Chinese president expressed willingness to work with Phuc, guided by building a community with a shared future with strategic significance to both sides, to strive for continuous, fresh and greater achievements in their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and better benefit the two countries and peoples.

On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also sent a congratulatory message to Pham Minh Chinh on his election as Vietnamese prime minister.

Li said he stands ready to work with his Vietnamese counterpart to steadily promote the synergy of the two countries' development strategies, speed up the construction of a mutually beneficial cooperation paradigm, and make positive contributions to the development of China-Vietnam relations featuring good-neighborly friendship and all-round cooperation.