On October 7, the 29th session of China-EU Trade & Economic Joint Committee was held in Brussels. Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng chaired the meeting jointly with EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. The main tasks of the meeting are to implement the achievements and consensus made at the China-EU Summit in June and the 5th China-EU High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in September, and to exchange views deeply on multilateral and bilateral economic and trade issues to the concern of both countries.
When evaluating the bilateral economic and trade relations, Gao said that, China and EU are important economic and trade partners of each other, and China-EU economic and trade relation has become the solid foundation and power engine for the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership. Under the new circumstances, the China-EU bilateral economic and trade relation will welcome new development opportunities. The two parties should bolster economic development, promote transformation and upgrading, and boost the employment increase through strengthening economic and trade cooperation.
Talking about the negotiation progress of China-EU Investment Agreement, Gao pointed out that, the China-EU Investment Agreement Negotiation is one of the most important issues of China-EU economic and trade relation. To reach a high-level investment agreement as soon as possible will not only contribute to the promotion of the level of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, but also contributes to the deepening of the reciprocal, win-win and comprehensive China-EU Strategic Partnership. It accords with the fundamental interests of the two parties. China and EU should, from the overall and strategic perspective, jointly promote the negotiation to gain active progress, make efforts to reach consensus on the range of the agreement before the end of 2015 and form the combined text, and realize the goals set by the leaders of the two parties during the meeting in June this year.
Talking about the cooperation in multilateral mechanism, Gao said that, multilateral trade system is an important part of the global governance. The plurilateral, bilateral and regional negotiations are all conducted on the basis of WTO rules. At the G20 Trade Ministers’ Meeting which just concluded, the member countries had full discussion on strengthening multilateral trade system. China will host the G20 Trade Ministers’ Meeting next year. China hopes, together with EU and the other parties, to study how to strengthen the construction of trade and investment mechanism under the framework of G20, and gain positive achievements in promoting the increase of international trade and investment, strengthening cooperation of the global value chain and optimizing the environment of trade and investment.
When talking about China-EU Intellectual Property cooperation, Gao said that, 2015 is the 40th anniversary of establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and EU, and also the 10th anniversary of the operation of the dialogue mechanism of Intellectual property. Under the dialogue mechanism, the two parties have strengthened communications and exchanged views on intellectual property and gained substantial achievements. China is willing to further deepen communication and cooperation with EU in the field of intellectual property.
The two parties also exchanged views on the negotiation of geographical indication and trade conflict control.
The EU party highly appraised this joint committee. They thought that China and EU have reached consensus on several issues. The discussions on China-EU Investment Agreement negotiation and Doha Round Negotiation were fruitful. EU is willing to promote actively the negotiation progress of China-EU Investment Agreement, to gain a win-win and reciprocal fruit. EU is the pioneer and practitioner of the multilateral trade system, and always stands up for the multilateral trade system. EU is willing to promote the Doha Round Negotiation to gain progress together with China.
Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the European Union Yang Yanyi, and Envoy Zhang Kening attended the meeting.
