Hopes high for improved Sino-German relations

Manufacturing, sustainable growth among nations' shared interests

Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday that he hopes China and Germany can push forward cooperation in manufacturing and emerging industries such as new energy when he met visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing.

Li also said he is looking forward to visiting Germany later this year and meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Steinmeier told Li that the two countries have shared interests in many aspects and have a broad prospect for cooperation.

Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Wang Yi also held talks with Steinmeier.

Wang told Steinmeier that China hopes Germany will seize the business opportunities brought by China's economic transition.

"China would like to learn advanced experience and technologies from foreign countries, including Germany. Countries that can seize the opportunity will take the initiative in cooperation with China," Wang told Steinmeier.

Steinmeier is on his first trip to China since taking office last year.

Steinmeier, who chose to visit Hebei province during the visit, said: "We would like to share our experience (with China) because we have also experienced a similar economic and social transition."

Hebei is home to many heavy industries such as steel, coal and glass, and is a major source of air pollution in northern China.

At the end of February, President Xi Jinping initiated a program to reduce pollution in the province by shutting down heavily polluting enterprises such as cement plants.

The German media saw it as a good chance for further China-Germany cooperation.

"In this process, China needs to cooperate with foreign countries, especially with Germany," German newspaper Die Welt said on its website.

Jia Xiudong, a senior researcher on international affairs at the China Institute of International Studies, said: "Germany has gathered abundant experience during the transition of former East Germany, so it can share its experience with China on how to develop a green economy with higher energy efficiency."

Zhao Junjie, a researcher of European studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed.

"China and Germany are both countries that place emphasis on sustainable development, so there are a lot of opportunities for cooperation," he said.

He urged Germany, which has cutting-edge technologies on green economy, to lower its threshold on exports to China in relevant industries.

Steinmeier's visit to China came two weeks after President Xi and Merkel raised China-Germany ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Xi's first state visit to Germany as president at the end of March.

Xi's visit marks a new starting point for Beijing-Berlin relations, as both vowed to inject new content into the partnership, Foreign Minister Wang told reporters after meeting with Steinmeier.

To enrich the partnership, Wang said the two sides will map out medium-to-long-term action plans for developing bilateral ties as soon as possible.

Beijing and Berlin will make further efforts to build a high-level economic dialogue mechanism and prepare for the China-Germany year of innovation in 2015, Wang added.

Germany is China's biggest trading and technology partner in the European Union. Bilateral trade in 2013 reached $161.6 billion, 580 times that in 1972, when China and the then-West Germany established diplomatic relations.

Sino-German trade volume - equal to China's combined trade with the United Kingdom, France and Italy - accounts for nearly a third of total trade between China and Europe.

China is Germany's largest trading partner in Asia.

Germany is also Europe's largest investor in China, with investment growing by 43 percent last year.

Chinese investment in Germany reached $830 million last year, an increase of 29 percent from 2012.

More than 30,000 Chinese students are studying in Germany and about 5,400 German students are studying in China.

Every week, more than 60 direct flights fly between the two countries.