China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin on Thursday met with Governor of France's Reunion Michel Lalande on advancing China-France ties.

Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top advisory body, stopped over at Reunion, a French island located in the Indian Ocean, on his way back to Beijing from his visit to the African nations of Cameroon, Namibia and South Africa.

In a meeting with Lalande, Jia said the China-France relationship gained a good momentum of development, expecting both countries to increase political trust, deepen substantive cooperation and boost sound and steady growth of bilateral ties.

With the growth of China-France ties, more and more people have been travelling between China and Reunion despite the long distance, Jia said.

China and Reunion, whose friendship dated back to a long time ago, also witnessed stronger economic and trade cooperation in recent years, Jia said.

Thanks to its unique geographical location, rich resources in sea and tourism and advanced renewable energy technology, Reunion can work more closely with China in those fields, Jia said.

Lalande welcomed Jia's stay in Reunion and agreed with Jia's proposal on bilateral cooperation in trade, culture, tourism and renewable energy.

Lalande said ethnic Chinese in Reunion were a major force in local development and made positive contribution to the France- China friendship.

There are around 30,000 ethnic Chinese living in the French island which has a total population of 800,000.

On Friday, Jia met with some representatives of the ethnic Chinese living in Reunion.

Jia briefed them on China's development and praised ethnic Chinese' role in boosting the ties between China and Reunion.

Jia said the Chinese government would like to build more extensive and closer ties with the ethnic Chinese.

He called on ethnic Chinese to continue their participation in local development, boost the China-France friendship, pay more visits to China and contribute to the country's reform and modernization drive, as well as reunification cause.

Jia will return to Beijing on Saturday morning.