BEIJING, Oct. 26 -- President Hu Jintao is to visit Britain, Germany and Spain early next month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced yesterday, another positive signal for Sino-EU relations.

    Following his European tour, Hu will also visit the Republic of Korea (ROK), and stay in the country to attend the APEC forum in Busan from November 18-19.

    "President Hu will pay a state visit to the four countries from November 8 to 17," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a regular briefing yesterday.

    During the first leg of his tour in Britain, Hu will meet Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Kong said. And in Germany from November 11 to 13, he will hold talks with President Horst Koehler, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and the incoming chancellor Angela Merkel. During the two-day visit in Spain, Hu will meet King Juan Carlos, among others.

    Hu's trip comes after last month's agreement on ending an impasse that left millions of Chinese-made garments stuck in European Union ports. Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and his counterpart, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson inked a deal increasing quotas, which both sides described as a "win-win" result.

    Hu's last official visit to the three European countries was in November 2001, one year before he took the position of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The visit, also including France and Russia, was widely seen by international media as a chance for Hu to step onto the world stage.

    In Seoul, China and the ROK, both players in the Six-Party Talks on the nuclear standoff in the Korean Peninsula, are expected to touch upon the nuclear issue again. A fresh round of nuclear negotiations is likely to be held in Beijing in the second week of November.

    Today, Premier Wen Jiabao will kick off his two-day trip to Moscow for the fourth meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Member States of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization. And next week, the 10th Sino-Russian Prime Ministers' meeting will be held in Beijing, according to Kong.

    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev said in Moscow before Wen's visit that the strategic partnership with China is a priority in Russia's foreign policy.

    Moscow and Beijing "are holding a permanent, full political dialogue at all levels, and a unique mechanism for interaction has been established," Alekseyev told Russian media.

    
(Source: China Daily)