China on Friday said its relations with India were at ‘one of the best periods’ in history with both nations implementing the consensus reached between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping during their informal summit in Wuhan in April.

Bilateral relations have, in fact, entered fast track of development after the summit between the two leaders, Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said addressing the China-India Youth Dialogue 2018 at the Chinese mission here.

The dialogue is a precursor to the 1st meeting of the people-to-people and cultural exchange mechanism to be inaugurated in New Delhi later this year by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

In his message to the participants, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the dialogue offered a unique opportunity to the youth of both nations to learn about each other’s culture and civilisation. The dialogue would provide a platform to youth of both nations to build a ‘Great Wall of Trust” between the two countries, he added.

The Chinese envoy said the sound bilateral relations and friendly cooperation between the two countries have provided solid basis and opportunities for youth exchanges. Over the past years, the two countries have set up a lot of interaction platforms for youth.

He noted that every year the two countries organised two-way exchanges of 200-member-youth delegations. Both governments have provided scholarship and encouraged academic and cultural cooperation. On the multilateral platform, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has a youth exchange camp and BRICS has organised a youth forum.

Luo said the two countries needed to take more concrete measures to enhance youth exchanges. There also was need to expand the scope of exchanges among the youth.

In this connection, he said China was willing to have dialogue with big Indian cities which could be called ‘Namaste New Delhi, Namaste Mumbai.’ The two countries could also focus on specific groups such as press, cinema and education sectors.

The two countries could also encourage more exchange programmes in sports and movie industry. More athletes could get training from each other, and the coaches could also visit each other. ‘’We welcome more Indian movies to be screened in Chinese cinemas.’’

China, on its part, was willing to encourage more India engineers to work in China. It would also encourage more Indian students to study in China and more Chinese students to study in India.

He asked the youth if they were ready to take over the mission of promoting China-India relations. ‘’Each generation has its own mission. With time passing by, we are no longer young. We have inherited the legacy of friendship from the pioneers and we are going to hand it over to you. You are the poetry of future. The future of China-India relations lies in your hands,’’ he added.