China has to purchase 130 planes at Airbus worth more than $17 billion, firming up its purchase options announced earlier in 2015 and intensifying the race to dominate what many project will become the biggest aircraft market in the world.
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China is the European Unions largest trading partner and several major EU countries including Germany, Britain and France are wooing the country in the hope of becoming hubs for the growing overseas trade of Chinas yuan currency.
China and Germany have witnessed all-around and rapid development of their relations in recent years, the pragmatic cooperation between the two countries has achieved fruitful results, Shi said.
The landmark Sino-US pact was signed during a USA visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping last, following threats by the U.S. to apply tougher economic sanctions in the absence of a deal.
Sources close to the arrangement of Merkel’s Hefei visit told Xinhua that Merkel had expressed willingness to visit Li’s hometown when she met Li during her China trip previous year. This strong demand in China for the A330 has been the key driver behind our decision to set up an A330 Completion and Delivery Centre in Tianjin, China next to the A320 Family final assembly line and delivery centre in Tianjin, which has assembled and delivered more than 240 Airbus single aisle aircraft.
Merkel’s visit was a bid to shore up German business interests with China.
Merkel said she was confident in the future of bilateral youth exchanges and educational cooperation, vowing to encourage more cooperation between the two countries’ local governments. But, she added, “What she can not lose is public support”.
Li’s comments were made on Friday in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei during a forum with Merkel.
The German leader said Berlin “would like to make our own contributions” to Chinese-led initiatives to expand trade links between Asian countries and between the region and Europe.
Other deals signed in their presence included cooperations between mobile phone manufacturer Nokia and China Mobile, as well as embattled auto giant Volkswagen and Chinese bank ICBC.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China would like to learn from Germany’s industrial capabilities. “At the same time China has to do a few homework, for example in the area of public procurement”, Merkel said.
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Deutsche Borse, Germany’s stock exchange operator, will also establish a joint venture with China Foreign Exchange Trade System in Germany. China is also the world’s leading aviation market.
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