Stepping up Austria-China's economic and trade cooperation would top the agenda of Austrian President Heinz Fischer's China trip, as he brought with him a large delegation of Austrian business executives.

"To enhance Austria-China economic and trade relations is priority among priorities," said Fischer in his speech at the China-Austria Economic Forum in Beijing on Wednesday.

Citing the Chinese proverb "to see is to believe" to describe his first China visit as president, Fischer lauded the achievements made by China since it implemented reform and opening up policy in 1978.

Fischer's retinue included a number of ministers, state secretaries, senior officials in charge of economy and a delegation of representatives from more than 100 enterprises covering the areas of energy, high technology, biotechnology, telecommunications, environmental protection and medical science.

Chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Wan Jifei said, the size of the delegation indicated that the Austrian government attached great importance to boosting economic and trade relations with China.

Due to the financial crisis, China-Austria trade volume from January to November in 2009 reached 4.33 billion U.S. dollars, with a year-on-year decrease of 3.1 percent, but it is far less than that of China-E.U. trade volume during the same period.

Arnulf Gressel, commercial attache of the commercial section of the Austrian Embassy in Beijing, told Xinhua that China was the only market for Austrian companies where the export actually grew in 2009 for 5 percent.

Considering the sharp drop of export in Austria's other major markets, "even the 5 percent is very remarkable," he said, adding he was expecting this growth would speed up as soon as the financial crisis was over.

China has now become Austria's largest trading partner in Asia, and second largest outside the Europe and the fourth largest exporters to Austria in the world.

Austria is also one of China's important sources of technology imports in the European Union. According to statistics, as of September 2009, China's contract value of technology imports from Austria has exceeded 4 billion U.S. dollars.

There is huge potential for bilateral cooperation in the area of new energy, environmental protection and manufacturing industry which includes transformation of traditional industries, cleaner production and improving energy efficiency, said Liu Zhengping, deputy director of international technology transfer center of Tsinghua University.

He suggested that the two sides promote investment and trade cooperation by developing pilot projects of new technology as well as establishing joint laboratories.

Among the enterprises in the business delegation, GE Jenbacher GmbH & Co OHG, a leading manufacturer of gas-fueled reciprocating engines, packaged generator sets and cogeneration systems for power generation, has been developing fast in the Chinese market.

However, the sales volume of GE Jenbacher's gas-fueled reciprocating engines in China only accounted for 1 percent of its global sales volume, said the representative of company, adding great potential lies in the Chinese market.

The gas engine company set up its first manufacture base in Asia in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province in October 2008.

At the forum, officials of China and Austria inked four cooperative agreements in science and technology, personnel training and Chinese teaching.

Fischer arrived in Beijing Tuesday noon for a four-day state visit to China.