Germany and China moved to strengthen their economic ties today amid a severe slowdown in the global economy that has already dramatically undercut economic growth in the world's two leading export nations, according to DPA. Following talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Europe's biggest economy and China, Asia's emerging economic powerhouse, should "intensify their co-operation to beat the (financial) crisis." Wen's trip to Europe, which also includes visits to London and Madrid, also serves to highlight the shift in the global balance of power away from the big industrial states. Speaking following her meeting with Wen, Merkel stressed that the Group of Eight (G8) major industrial nations and Russia was an inadequate forum for facing up to the current economic problems unleashed by the financial crisis. "It shows that most of the questions cannot be resolved by the G8 nations alone," Merkel said. Reflecting German business' concerns, Merkel warned at a special China-German economics forum today about the threat of greater protectionism caused by the contraction in the world economy. "Our chance lies with open markets," Merkel told the forum. "China and Germany face new enormous challenges," Juergen Hambrecht, the chief of German industry's influential Asian-Pacific Committee told the forum.
