China, Germany boost partnership

$18.1 billion worth of trade, investment and tech cooperation deals inked

China and Germany on Friday released a comprehensive action plan designed to further promote their strategic partnership.[Special coverage]

The document, a guideline for bilateral cooperation in the medium and long terms, was issued during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's ongoing official visit to the European economic powerhouse.

China and Germany also inked $18.1 billion worth of trade, investment and technological cooperation deals on Friday, Xinhua reported.

The two sides should work together to properly implement the blueprint, and pursue common development from a long-term perspective, so as to raise their relationship to higher levels, Li said while co-chairing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel the third round of bilateral governmental consultations.

Beijing, the premier added, is ready to open strategic dialogue with Berlin on diplomatic and security affairs.

He also urged Germany to increase high-tech exports to China, support the establishment of feasibility studies on a China-EU free trade zone, and help ease the EU's high-tech export restrictions on China.

Cooperation between China and Germany has reached a historical high, Li said, when meeting with German President Joachim Gauck in Berlin Friday, saying the outcomes were made through China and Germany's joint efforts.

Li arrived in Berlin on Thursday as the first stop of his visits to Germany, Russia and Italy from October 9 to October 17.

Choosing Germany as his first stop in Europe indicated the "close cooperative relationship between the two countries," Sun Keqin, a research fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times Friday.

Since Germany is one of the most important economic and political entities in the European Union, which is seeing an economic slowdown since the debt crisis, Li's visit to Germany "will benefit both countries," Sun noted.

Germany is China's biggest cooperation partner in Europe in the sectors of trade, technological cooperation and investment, with their bilateral trade exceeding $160 billion in 2013, according to the Chinese central government's website.

Comprehensive cooperation between the two countries will be "a pillar" for "both the two competitors" to survive their own economic slowdowns, Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times Friday.

European aviation giant Airbus on Friday announced that it had inked a $7 billion agreement to sell 70 A320 jets to China.

In the financial sector, German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse was set to sign a wide-ranging cooperation agreement with the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) as soon as Friday, three sources familiar with the plans were quoted by Reuters as saying Thursday.

As a country that has advantages in the auto manufacturing sector, Germany is expected to have further cooperation with China in the auto industry.

Volkswagen was expected to sign a contract with the China FAW Group Corp to extend their joint venture by 25 years, a person familiar with the matter was quoted as saying by Reuters Friday. Daimler and the Beijing Automotive Industry Corp agreed to deepen a strategic partnership that will include further localization of luxury cars by the German manufacturer, Reuters reported Friday.

In an article published on Germany's Die Welt newspaper Wednesday, Li said that China will consider Volkswagen's request to increase its stakes in FAW-Volkswagen and that China hopes that Germany allow Chinese enterprises to bid for high-speed railway projects in the country.

Sun said that the economic cooperation between the two countries has in recent years been upgraded from its past focus on labor intensive sectors such as the textile industry to the advanced technology sector like high-speed railways.

In addition to economic cooperation, Sun also noted that China could learn from Germany's advanced experience in the areas of vocational and technical education.

AFP quoted Sebastian Heilmann of Berlin's Mercator Institute for China Studies as saying that Germany remains China's "anchor country" in Europe, but that amid the disputes the "fair weather phase" is ending as China shifts from being a workshop for foreign companies to a competitor.

Sun said that although China and Germany have some conflicts such as Germany's anti-dumping measures on China's solar companies, the top level governmental consultations between the two countries' top leaders will be helpful in resolving these issues.