The 19th session of China-France Joint Committee on Economy and Trade was held in Chongqing on April 13. Gao Hucheng, Vice Minister of Commerce of China, and Anna-Marie Idrac, French Minister of State for Foreign Trade, co-chaired the session.

Gao stated that the mutual economic and trade cooperation was the important foundation for China-France comprehensive strategic partnership. Leaders of the two countries attached great importance to it and boosted it. Currently, the development of the bilateral economic and trade cooperation was generally on a healthy track. The impact of the international financial crisis on the bilateral trade was temporary and limited. Moreover, bilateral trade of 2010 made a good start, up by 39.4% year on year in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the two-way investment is dynamic, and the fields of cooperation are expanding, which are all signs of the strong potential in development and cooperation. And China is willing to make joint efforts with France to foster new growths under the new situation and make due contribution to further consolidating and deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership of the two countries.

According to Idrac, despite the bad influence on the two economies and bilateral trade caused by the international financial crisis, the bilateral trade, investment and cooperation still kept the active momentum. And great achievements were made in this session held in a right time and right place. Moreover, the session created favorable atmercephere for exchange of visits by the leaders of the two countries in 2010. In addition to consolidating and deepening the cooperation in traditional sectors such as energy, transportation and aviation, the two countries could develop the mutual cooperation in new sectors, including agriculture, food security, financing, luxury industry and sustainable development, provide a cooperation platform for small and medium-sized enterprises, and make full use of the huge potential of the bilateral economic and trade cooperation so as to keep the strong momentum of the mutual cooperation.

In the session, the two parties conducted extensive and in-depth discussions on topics related to China-France bilateral economic and trade cooperation and exchanged opinions on multi-lateral issues of the world’s economic situation, Doha Round and China-European economic and trade relations. Both parties reiterated that the two states will keep and consolidate the traditional cooperation areas of energy, aviation, rail transportation and telecommunication and have gained positive achievements on positively opening up the cooperation in new areas: firstly, to carry out the consensus reached by Chinese Premier and French Prime Minister on cooperating to set up ecological parks in Chinese national economic and technological development zones and have preliminarily chosen Chengdu, Chongqing and Shenyang as pilot city to conduct investment and technical cooperation in energy conservation and environmental protection; secondly, to strengthen the cooperation in name-brands and boutique industry; and thirdly, to enhance the cooperation of the two states in the areas of agricultural products trade and food security and set up the related cooperative mechanism under the China-France Joint Committee on Economy and Trade. In addition, the two parties have reached an agreement on further deepening two-way investment cooperation and the cooperation between finance and small and medium-sized enterprises.

After the session, Vice Minister Gao and French Minister for the State Idrac inked the minutes, and met with the reporters from home and abroad.

Those present at the meeting included Zhou Mubing, Vice Mayor of Chongqing, and representatives from commercial departments of Sichuan and Liaoning. During the session, Bo Xilai, Secretary of CPC Chongqing Committee and member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, met with Idrac and her party.