Minister of Commerce Chen Deming held talks with Paavo Vayrynen, visiting Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, in Beijing on January 28.
Chen expressed that China-Finland economic and trade ties enjoy sound development over the recent years. The bilateral trade volume broke through US$10 billion for the first time in 2007. Finland has remained China’s biggest trade partner in Northern Europe for 4 successive years, and China Finland’s biggest trade partner in Asia for 5 successive years. In 2007 China’s technology imported from Finland topped the list of China-Europe technology trade.
Chen pointed out that China attaches great importance to developing the economic and trade ties with Finland, and is willing to further expand import from Finland, actively introduce technology, and promote balanced development in the bilateral trade. Finnish enterprises have made investments in China in such fields as timber processing, paper machinery, and mobile communications equipment, etc. Finnish enterprises are welcome to continuously expand their investments in China , especially in Central, Western and Northeastern China. And Chinese enterprises shall also be encouraged and supported to make investments in Finland. Now that Finland possesses technology advantages in the fields of energy conservation and environmental protection, China is willing to further strengthen the related economic and trade cooperation with the former and actively probe into the pilot work of joint establishment of a hi-tech eco-city.
Vayrynen expressed that China is an important economic and trade partner of Finland. The trade between the two countries enjoys rapid development. Finland expects to further enlarge its export to China. Boasting a favorable investment environment, Finland welcomes the investments by Chinese enterprises in the fields concerning high technology, forestry, mining, information & communications, etc. Finland gives predominance to its cooperation with China in energy conservation and environmental protection, and to this end, the Finnish Environmental Science and Technology China Project Committee has been specially set up. Finland hopes to work with the Chinese side to probe into more cooperation projects.
The two ministers also exchanged views on the bilateral and multilateral economic and trade issues of common interest, such as the bilateral cooperation on labor services, Forum on Economic and Trade Cooperation among China, Finland and Russia, China-Europe economic and trade ties, Doha Round of Trade Talks, trade development, climate change, etc. Both sides expressed that China-Europe economic and trade relations are extremely important and such cooperation should be further deepened through a dialogue mechanism. Both ministers agreed that the Doha Round of Trade Talks should be vigorously promoted to achieve the balanced results at an earlier date.