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Wen urges efforts to boost China-Germany biz ties

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-28 21:27

BERLIN - Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday called for redoubled efforts to further strengthen business ties between China and Germany.

"Thanks to joint efforts of the business communities of the two countries, our business relations have flourished, bringing great benefits to our two peoples," Wen said in a speech at the sixth Chinese-German Forum for Economic and Technological Cooperation in Berlin.

As the two economies are highly complementary and have both maintained sound growth, it's "fully possible for our business relations to enter a new stage of growth," he added.

Wen made a six-point proposal for pushing forward bilateral practical cooperation, saying "we need to redouble efforts in the following areas."

First, both sides should expand trade, Wen said. "We need to fully tap into the potential for greater trade and take more trade facilitation measures."

"Our goal is to double the current trade volume in five years," he said.

China is ready to import more competitive German products, and hopes Germany will recognize China's full market economy status at an early date "to remove this obstacle to the growth of bilateral trade," he said.

Second, both sides should encourage two-way investment, the premier said.

More German companies are welcome to make investment in China, he said."We hope to speedily conclude negotiations on a model joint-venture contract with Germany and establish a China-Germany investment hotline to help solve problems our companies may encounter."

Third, both sides should strengthen technological exchanges and cooperation.

"The technological strengths of German companies, once combined with China's strengths in labor resources and market, will both help promote China's economic structural adjustment and industrial upgrading and make German companies and products more competitive in the world market," he said.

The EU's export control vis-a-vis China has restricted German export of high- and new-tech products to China and greatly undermined the competitiveness of German companies in the Chinese market, Wen said.

"We hope that Germany will urge the EU to relax such export control and increase the share of high- and new-tech products in its trade with China," he added.

Fourth, both sides should expand cooperation in new energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, Wen said.

"China and Germany have much to benefit from cooperation in developing renewable energy and improving energy efficiency," he said.

The first Chinese-German Eco-park is expected to be built in Qingdao, he added.

Fifth, both sides should increase cooperation between small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the Chinese premier said.

China not only pursues cooperation with large German transnational companies, but encourages cooperation between Chinese and German SMEs. "China has decided to set up a 2-billion-euro (2.8-billion-dollar) special loan to support such cooperation," he said.

Sixth, both sides should boost people-to-people exchanges, Wen said.

"China proposes to set up a 'Chinese-German vocational education alliance' involving the government, companies and academic institutions to be based in the China-Germany demonstration center for vocational education," he said.

Two-way trade exceeded $140 billion in 2010, accounting for nearly one-third of China's trade with the European Union (EU), Wen said. Over 7,000 German companies have been set up in China, with paid-in investment exceeding 17 billion dollars, the highest among EU countries.

Moreover, with over 15,000 contracts for technology transfer to China worth over 50 billion dollars, Germany is the largest source of China's technology import from Europe, accoording to the Chinese premier.