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B&R News: Belt and Road Initiative upgrades China-EU cooperation
6 Jun 2017

 

The development of Sino-EU trade and investment serves as a propeller for the bilateral ties between China, the world's largest developing country and the EU, the world's largest developed economic entity, experts say, Xinhua reported.

 

The Belt and Road Initiative provides strong power to upgrade and advance the trade and economic cooperation between China and the EU. Thanks to cooperative projects implemented under the initiative, the cost of land transportation between China and Europe has fallen by 50 percent, and the customs clearance speed has increased by more than 30 percent, according to statistics from the Chinese Mission to the EU.

 

It is believed the initiative will attract more medium- and small-sized enterprises to take part in bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

 

Statistics show that the EU has been China's largest trade partner for years, and China is the EU's second largest trade partner. The EU is the largest source of advanced technology to China.

 

In 2016, bilateral trade volumes hit US$547 billion. By the end of March 2017, China's accumulative direct investment in the EU had reached more than US$73.3 billion, and the EU's accumulative direct investment in China hit US$114.6 billion.

 

Chen Xin, director of the business department of the Institute of European Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China and the EU should make a better use of their competitive strengths in future cooperation, because the two sides have big complementarities, especially in industrial structure.

 

Chai Xiaolin, minister for economic and commercial affairs at the Chinese Mission to the EU, said that China and the EU have broad consensus in various areas including promoting liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, upholding multilateralism and maintaining stability of the international system. 

 

Source: Xinhua