China and the United Kingdom (U.K.) had agreed to target 60 billion U.S. dollars worth of annual bilateral trade by 2010, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said here on Friday.
The target was set by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the visiting British leader, who arrived here early on Friday for an official visit.
The revised target was among several consensuses reached during the meeting between Wen and Brown. Others include the involvement of vice premiers in the current vice-ministerial bilateral financial dialogue, as well as cooperation on climate change, health care innovation, sustainable cities and hosting the 2012 Olympic Games.
"The Chinese side highly praises the U.K.'s free trade and anti-trade protectionism stance," according to a press release from the Sino-U.K. industry and commerce summit held on Friday.
"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," said the statement.
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.
He also noted that bilateral investment could be boosted. "We welcome British companies to come and invest in China, and the Chinese government was also encouraging Chinese enterprises to 'go out'", he said.
Cumulative investment from the U.K. was 14.7 billion U.S. dollars, according to Cheng.
Bilateral trade stood at 39.44 billion U.S dollars in 2007, or about 11.7 percent of the total trade of the European Union with China, which was 356.15 billion U.S. dollars. The EU was China's largest trading partner.
The two sides signed eight agreements worth nearly 800 million U.S. dollars on Friday to cooperate in areas ranging from education to energy.
(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2008)
