By KUNA
Brussels : European Union Commissioner for employment and social affairs , Vladimir Spidla, begins a 3-day visit to China on Friday to strengthen cooperation on employment and social affairs.
He will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinas top think-tank , the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to promote policy dialogue on issues of common interests such as demographic ageing in Europe and China. The one-family, one-child policy of China is creating an ageing problem for the worlds most populous country. The EU is also facing an acute aeging crisis.
“China has a huge growth but is not able to provide job creation, said EU sources in Brussels Wednesday.
Spidla will also hold a series of bilateral meetings with the Chinese government and the business community during his visit to China, noted the EU sources. In 2006, China remained the EUs second largest trading partner and displaced the United States as the largest source of EU imports. Chinese exports to the EU totalled approximately 191 billion euro in 2006 while EU exports to China increased totaled about 63 billion euro, accounting for overall bilateral trade of of 254 billion euro.