By Xinhua
Beijing : Chinese premier Wen Jiabao Friday held talks with his visiting British counterpart Gordon Brown here during which the two countries reached agreements on a broad range of subjects like trade and finance, education, sports, among other things.
The two sides decided to increase bilateral trade to $60 billion by 2010.
“Both sides believe in the broad prospects of future bilateral trade and agreed to strengthen cooperation in the service and technology sectors in bilateral trade and explore new areas for cross investment,” an official statement said.
The economies of the two countries are “highly complementary, and the two sides have much room for cooperation in service trade and technological trade”, Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said at the summit.
“We welcome British companies to come and invest in China, and the Chinese government was also encouraging Chinese enterprises to ‘go out’,” he said.
Bilateral trade stood at $39.44 billion in 2007, or about 11.7 percent of the total trade of the European Union (EU) with China, which was $356.15 billion. The EU was China’s largest trading partner.
They also pledged to enhance consultation and coordination in various fields including education, economy, health, sports and environment.
Wen reaffirmed China’s support to the Action Proclamation on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the British side has proposed.
After the talks, the two leaders attended the signing ceremony of contracts worth nearly $800-million in the fields of education and energy, and issued a joint statement on climate change.