German Chancellor Angela Merkel will head a delegation to visit China in October, after President Xi Jinping's planned visit to the U.S. in late September, an official with German Embassy in China told the Global Times on Monday.
"It is planned that German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China at the end of October. Further details on her visit are not yet available," Nikolas Bader, deputy head of Press and PR Section in the German Embassy, told the Global Times on Monday.
Merkel has kept a close eye on China's economic development, said an unnamed Chinese government official with in-depth knowledge of European diplomacy. "There's no doubt that European countries will follow if Sino-U.S. economic cooperation gets more open, the same goes for Germany, who will only walk in the leading line and never lag behind."
Merkel will not miss an opportunity to visit and boost Sino-German relations and Sino-European relations, said the source, adding that details of her visit would be scheduled shortly.
"Germany will not turn a deaf ear if the Sino-US relation is building up momentum. On the contrary, it will boost the Sino-German relation to a further step," a German think-tank expert told the Global Times on Sunday.
"A delegation of German parliamentarians will arrive in Beijing to prepare the ground next week," the expert said.
In an earlier interview, Michael Clauss, the German ambassador to China, said it was possible that Merkel would visit China this year, adding that currently Sino-German relation is at its closest and best in history, news site thepaper.cn reported on September 8.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in June that China is willing to boost cooperation with Europe via the "European Fund for Strategic Investment," a 315 billion-euro plan ($357 billion) initiated by the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, reported the Xinhua News Agency.
