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Osborne: China and Britain ‘will stick together’

Sources close to the Shanghai Stock Exchange said that Osborne personally asked to deliver his speech at the trading hall in the city, an iconic place for China’s capital market, indicating the strong British interest in seeking a partnership with the Shanghai bourse.

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Chinese stock markets have been sometimes likened to “casinos” and the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index soared more than 150 per cent in the 12 months to mid-June, in a debt-fuelled rally encouraged by authorities. Earlier this year, it broke ranks with the United States by signing up as a potential founding member of China’s new infrastructure investment bank, which is seen by some as challenging the Japan and US-led Asian Development Bank.

“Whatever the headlines, regardless of the challenges, we shouldn’t be running away from China”, he will say.

Meanwhile, Amber Rudd, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy, told the Financial Times during a visit to Beijing that Britain is keen to cooperate with Chinese partners for a separate nuclear project using Chinese indigenous nuclear technology, at Bradwell nuclear power station, in Essex.

Beijing has set itself a 7% gross domestic product growth target this year, but many forecasters expect actual growth to come in considerably lower. The Chinese government has taken measures to stabilise the markets and guard against systemic risks, said Li.

“Britain and China: we’ll stick together”. “Through the ups and downs, let’s stick together”.

Speaking on the first day of a five-day tour of China, Osborne sent a message to his Communist party hosts, who are grappling with how to manage their country’s economic transition while avoiding a hard landing.

On top of that, he said plans had been agreed for a £50m nuclear research centre, to be co-funded by Britain and China and headquartered in the UK. When China’s stock exchanges started a similar link with Hong Kong late past year , it created massive volatility and huge valuation bubbles at some companies, as mainland China investors rushed in and out of different stocks.

“The Chinese government has been actively pressing for more global cooperation”. We’re a multi-party democracy.

Critics have accused British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government of treading too softly on human rights issues as it pursues deeper trade ties with China.

China will be one of the chief investors.

The Treasury made clear that further amounts will potentially be available in the longer term and voiced its hope that Hinkley Point will open the door to “unprecedented” UK-Chinese collaboration on power station construction.

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“I just think it’s actually much better that we engage”.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on Monday