Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan urged improved trade and commercial relations between the European Union and his country, pledging Friday that his country would work to improve investment conditions and commercial cooperation. In the keynote speech to the first "China Meets Europe" conference in Hamburg, Zeng spoke of the "enormous potential for cooperation" and further growth in E.U.-Chinese commercial relations. "China is the world's biggest developing country. The E.U. is the world's biggest economic region," the Beijing leader said. "The E.U. has become China's biggest trading partner." Trade so far this year had reached a volume of 132 billion dollars. Zeng proposed four areas where commercial relations could be improved, including ending "unreasonable" trade barriers and restrictions, greater technological cooperation, greater investment activities, and strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). On the issue of IPR - with China often standing accused of being a source of piracy of software and other IT technology - Zeng pledged that China would step up its efforts to crack down on piracy. He also noted that there had been cases of "cyber piracy" in some E.U. countries involving Chinese products. In his speech, Zeng did not once mention the United States, instead focusing on the deepening ties with the E.U. "China and the E.U. have a lot of common ground politically," he said. Zeng's speech kicked off two days of brainstorming among some 450 Chinese and European business and political leaders at the first-ever "Hamburg Summit" in the northern German port city. The Chinese vice premier arrived in Hamburg after talks in Berlin on Thursday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Finance Minister Hans Eichel and Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement. Zeng said he and the Berlin leaders agreed that "relations are in very good shape" between Germany and China. Zeng's visit to Berlin comes amid the preparations for a trip to China by Schroeder in early December. In the first ten months, German-Chinese trade had come to over 43 billion dollars, up 30 per cent, and accounting for about one-third of China's total trade with the E.U., Zeng said. He said China's economy was on course to show 9 per cent growth this year.
