Chinese President Hu Jintao met Ukrainian Prime Minister Mikola Azarov Thursday in China's southern resort city of Sanya. [Xinhua]

China hopes to increase trade volume with Ukraine to 10 billion U.S. dollars by 2012, Chinese President Hu Jintao said Thursday in Sanya.

Hu made the remarks when meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Mikola Azarov in the southern Chinese resort city in Hainan Province.

Bilateral cooperation between China and Ukraine in economy, trade, technology and space technology have deepened remarkably in recent years, Hu said.

He said that China hopes the two countries could well implement major cooperative projects and improve cooperation in science, technology and agriculture.

Hu said China attaches great importance to the relations with Ukraine and bilateral ties have developed steadily since the two nations established diplomatic relations in 1992.

He said the two countries should further expand people-to-people exchanges and strengthen cooperation and coordination in international and regional issues such as reforms on the United Nations, climate change and nuclear non-proliferation.

Azarov said Ukraine would like to maintain high-level exchanges with China and deepen cooperation in such areas as economy, trade, space technology, agriculture and culture.

He said the Ukrainian government welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in the country.

Azarov will attend the annual meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan on Friday.