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China, Germany to chart future cooperation during Premier’s visit

Updated: Oct 8,2014 12:03 PM     Xinhua

BERLIN -- China and Germany will map out bilateral collaboration for the medium and long terms during Premier Li Keqiang’s upcoming visit, says Beijing’s top envoy in Berlin.

Li’s visit, due to start on Oct 9, is his second to Germany since he took office in March 2013. In Berlin, the premier will co-chair the China-Germany governmental consultation with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The two heads of government are scheduled to spend “seven or eight hours together” on various events, Ambassador to Germany Shi Mingde told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Nearly 30 ministerial-level officials are expected to attend the consultation, during which “a new roadmap for China-Germany relations will be drawn,” according to the senior diplomat.

Shi added that the two sides will hammer out a guideline defining new prospects, fields and measures of bilateral cooperation for the medium and long terms.

The guideline, he said, will cover “almost all the areas,” including economy, technology and environment protection, and will contain over 100 pieces of concrete measures.

China-Germany relations have enjoyed comprehensive and intensive development in recent years, said the ambassador, noting that bilateral transactions account for one third of the total China-EU trade volume.

From January to August this year, bilateral trade amounted to $117.3 billion, up 12 percent year-on-year.

Chinese investment in Germany is growing fast, bringing in fresh funds and creating new jobs.

Meanwhile, bilateral cooperation has shifted from low- and mid-end manufacturing sectors to space technology, e-mobility, finance, energy saving, environment protection, education and other high quality industries.

“The two countries are important markets for each other. Our enhanced cooperation is meaningful to our economic growth,” said Shi, adding that China and Germany have complementary advantages and can achieve win-win results in various sectors.

“We are making great efforts to transform our economic structure, change our development mode, and address environmental pollution. This will create a huge demand in the market of environment protection and energy saving. That’s where Germany has advantages. Bilateral cooperation has a very bright prospect,” Shi said.

Another example is innovation, he said. Germany has set good examples for China in many ways, such as constantly increasing investment in education and scientific research, training high-quality human resources via its dual vocational education system and encouraging small- and medium-sized enterprises to innovate.

The main areas of China-Germany future innovative cooperation will include “industry 4.0,” a strategic hi-tech project of the German government, as well as urbanization, industrialization, informatization and agricultural modernization among many others, according to the ambassador.

Li is also scheduled to attend the Hamburg Summit, the largest Chinese-European business meeting that takes place every other year in Hamburg.

He will meet representatives from the European Union and give a keynote speech. According to Shi, the premier is expected to speak about China’s economic situation and its relations with Germany and Europe.

“The speech will enhance Germany and Europe’s knowledge, understanding and confidence about China’s reform and development, and push forward our win-win collaboration with Germany and Europe,” Shi said.