isramart : China ready to work with EU on CO2 reduction

isramart new:
A very important priority of China's relations with the EU is to vigorously promote co-operation in energy saving, emission reduction, environmental protection and new energy sources, writes Ambassador Song Zhe, head of the Mission of the People's Republic of China to the EU, in an essay published on the mission's webpage on 18 April.
As the EU is in the world leader in the development of wind energy, nuclear energy, renewable energy and waste treatment, China is looking forward to strongly cooperating in these fields, the Chinese diplomat states.

Ambassador Song reveals that in the next five years, his country will invest more than 300 billion US dollars in energy conservation and environmental protection, accounting for 30% of the world market.

"We can further explore the possibility of more cooperation in joint research and development, application of energy efficient technologies and prevention and treatment of pollution, to jointly protect our planet," he further writes.

The Chinese representative to the EU listed cooperation in sustainable development among the five priorities, as he saw them, of EU-China relations, following the April G20 Summit in London and in the context of responding to the international financial crisis.

Besides sustainable development, he listed rejecting protectionism, handling differences through dialogue, intensifying investment promotion and strengthening SME cooperation.

Ambassador Song argues that despite the major natural disasters and the impact of the international financial crisis, the Chinese economy has maintained steady and rapid growth, and progress has been made in various social undertakings. China's GDP exceeded 30 trillion Yuan, an increase of 9% over 2007, he indicates.

The ambassador describes the dynamics of EU-China economic relations in the following terms:

"The China-EU bilateral trade volume was only 2.4 billion US dollars in 1975 when they established diplomatic relations. In 2008 this figure reached 425.6 billion US dollars, an increase of 177 times. Since 2004, the EU has replaced the United States as China's largest trading partner. Since February 2007, the EU once again overtook the US to become China's largest export market. Since January 2009, the EU surpassed Japan for the first time, to become China's largest source of imports."