President Xi Jinping congratulated Katalin Novak for taking office as Hungary's new president on Tuesday, saying that he stands ready to work with his counterpart to advance bilateral ties for the benefit of the two nations.

In his message, Xi said the China-Hungary relationship has maintained high-level development in recent years, with frequent high-level exchanges, fruitful results from cooperation in all fields and good coordination in international and regional affairs.

Stressing that he highly values the development of ties, Xi said he stands ready to work with Novak to deepen mutual political trust and traditional friendship between the two countries.

He also called on the two sides to deepen cooperation at the bilateral level as well as within frameworks such as the Belt and Road Initiative and Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries to bring the China-Hungary comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level.

On March 10, the Hungarian parliament elected Novak, its former Family minister, as the country's first female president for a five-year term. On Tuesday, she took over the presidency of the republic from her predecessor Janos Ader.