European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday said he urged Chinese leaders to take action on trade and human rights to develop a full "strategic partnership" with the European Union, dpa reported. Barroso said he told Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai on Friday that more work was needed to address "specific problems" before the European Union can consider granting China market economic status. "Market economic status depends on some technical issues and some work has to be done on both sides," Barroso said he told Bo and other Chinese leaders. The E.U.'s recognition of China as a market economy would make it subject to less stringent anti-dumping investigations of low-cost Chinese exports. Barroso said the E.U. would take a "constructive approach" but that the process of designating China a market economy "will take some time". He said he told Chinese leaders that it was "still the objective" for the E.U. to lift a 16-year-old arms embargo, but that China needed to improve its human rights record. The E.U. needs to be able to "explain some positive steps" in human rights in China, in order to satisfy public opinion and opposition in national parliaments to lifting the arms ban, Barroso told reporters. The embargo was imposed after China's military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. --mor 1238 Local Time 0938 GMT
