BEIJING, Nov. 13 -- The upcoming European Union-China
Summit in Beijing will discuss some major cooperation projects, from
multi-million-euro loans to fighting climate change and possibly a clean-energy
research center, EU ambassador to China Serge Abou said Monday.
Addressing a press conference, Abou, who is also head
of the European Commission (EC) delegation to China, said the European
Investment Bank will give a 500-million-euro loan to Chinese banks. The deal
will be struck on the sidelines of the summit scheduled for Nov. 28.
The two sides will sign a 10-million-euro program,
too, to train management professionals at Shanghai-based China Europe
International Business School. A China-EU law school will also be opened next
year, he said.
Also, EU's proposal to start a Sino-EU clean-energy
center in China could get a favorable response at the summit, Abou said.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose
country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, EC President Jose Manuel
Barroso, other senior EU officials and top Chinese leaders will attend the
summit.
Both sides will review the progress made in EU-China
ties over the past decade and discuss how to further pragmatic bilateral
cooperation in the fields of trade, science and technology, tourism and
education, Abou said.
"We will increase our long-term cooperation by
forging a political and legal framework for cooperation. which we think will be
a framework for the next decades," he said.
It was started early this year and has developed
quite smoothly, said Abou.
The Chinese and EU leaders are also likely to discuss
international and regional issues of common concern such as the situations in
the Middle East and Myanmar and the nuclear issues in Iran and on the Korean
Peninsula, Abou said.
"I'm sure we will have a very intense discussion."
Both sides are preparing for the summit with optimism and confidence and in the
spirit of cooperation, he said.
An EU-China business meeting will be held on the
sidelines of the summit and is expected to attract about 500 entrepreneurs from
China and the EU. They are likely to have in-depth discussions on subjects
related to bilateral trade and investment cooperation, including protection of
intellectual property rights and product safety, Abou said.
The annual EU-China Summit that began in 1998 is a
high-level communication platform between Chinese and EU leaders. The last one
was held in Helsinki in September 2006.
The European Union is China's biggest foreign trading
partner, ahead of the United States and Japan, while China has become EU's top
supplier, according to Abou.
(Source: China Daily)
