Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, on Friday evening had a working dinner in this picturesque estate in Rancho Mirage, California, after holding the first China-U.S. summit since the two countries completed their recent leadership transitions.

Before the dinner, the two heads of state held talks to exchange in-depth views on each other's domestic development and on building a new type of relations between big powers.

During the talks, Xi said the China-U.S. relationship now stands at a new historic starting point, and the two countries share important converging interests, from promoting each other's economic development and steady global economic recovery to addressing international and regional hot issues and global challenges.

That requires, he added, the two nations to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

The Chinese president also called on the two sides to work together to build a new type of relations between big powers in an innovative and active way to serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples and to promote development and progress of human society.

The summit is the first face-to-face meeting between the presidents of China and the United States since Xi assumed the presidency in March and Obama won a second presidential term in the last November elections.

Xi arrived in the U.S. state of California on Thursday, after wrapping up a three-nation Latin America tour, which took him to Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2013)