Visit China Year 2010, a year-long event to enhance various exchanges and cooperation between China and South Korea, was officially inaugurated in Seoul, South Korea's capital city, on Monday.

The year of 2010, during which China will host World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and the year of 2012, in which a similar event will be hosted in South Korea's southern city of Yeosu, were designated as Visit China Year and Visit Korea Year respectively by Chinese President Hu Jintao and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak in 2008.

In the congratulatory messages exchanged on the occasion of the New Year celebration in January 1, both two leaders agreed that China and South Korea will enhance coordination and cooperation, pledging to take the Shanghai Expo and Yeosu Expo as an opportunity to push forward the relations between the two countries, and strengthen mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.

At the inauguration ceremony, Chairman of China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) Shao Qiwei said in a speech read by its Seoul bureau chief Zhang Xilong, that the year of 2010 is also a World Expo Tourism Year, and China will do its utmost to make both Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Game wonderful and successful events.

Shao said he welcomes more South Korean tourists to China in 2010, which will help increase mutual understanding and amity between the two countries.

Chinese ambassador Cheng Yonghua said both Visit China Year and Visit Korea Year, supported by two countries' leaders, are of great significance in the history of China-South Korea relationship. With Visit China 2010 inaugurated, China will stage a range of follow-up events to expand exchanges and cooperation with South Korea in various fields such as politics, economy and culture.

He also hoped that more South Koreans would visit China.

The Seoul's Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yu In-Chon also hailed the event as an important step to promote the relations between the two countries.

Since Beijing and Seoul established diplomatic ties in 1992, the two countries have seen a leap in the development of relations, Yu said, adding that he believed the event would actively promote exchanges between the two sides in the future.

More than 800 South Korean government officials, lawmakers and business figures, and diplomats of various countries attended the ceremony.

The World Expo 2010, with a theme of "Better City, Better Life", will be held during the period from May 1 to October 31 in the eastern Chinese city of Shanghai.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2010)