Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming held talks on Nov.2 with the visiting Trade Minister of Australia Emerson in Beijing. This is the first time for Emerson to visit China in the capacity of Trade Minister. The two sides had an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral trade and economic relations, China-Australia FTA negotiations, Chinese enterprises’ investment in Australia, China-Australia ministerial economic joint committee and Doha Round Negotiations.

Minister Chen expressed welcome to Emerson on his first visit to China and stated that the Chinese government always attached great importance to the development of China-Australia trade and economic relations. China would like to boost bilateral trade and economic cooperation into a higher level, given the high complementarity in economy and great cooperation potential of the two countries.

At present, overall China-Australia trade and economic relations is on smooth development. China and Australia are important trade and investment partners of each other. And China is pleased with bilateral trade and economic cooperation. As leaders of the two countries have steadfast political will on boosting China-Australia FTA, China hopes that the two sides could make joint efforts to creatively promote the process of FTA negotiations. Besides, China will further encourage its enterprises, especially hi-tech enterprises, to invest in Australia, and hope Australia could take open and non-discrimination policies for all Chinese enterprises including its state-owned enterprises.

Minister Chen pointed out that the success of Doha Round Negotiations would be beneficial for all countries to cope with economic crisis. Currently, priority should be given to safeguard existing negotiation achievements, respect authorization, hold on multilateral negotiations as main channel, and solve remaining issues as soon as possible. Australia always plays an active role in promoting the negotiations, and China is willing to promote the success of Doha Round Negotiations to realize development goals with other member countries including Australia.

Emerson stated that the importance of China-Australia trade and economic relations was self-evident. China has become the largest trading partner of Australia. Leaders of the two countries are of great vision, and have made efforts on building sound bilateral relations ever since 1970s. In order to cope with the international financial crisis, China’s stimulus package created huge demand, which had great effect on export growth of Australia, and on getting rid of the economic crisis. Australia hoped that the two countries could make joint efforts as usual and find new ideas for promoting China-Australia FTA negotiations and the further development of bilateral trade and economic relations. Additionally, Australia will take advantage of G20 Summit and APEC meeting to send its political message of boosting the success of Doha Round Negotiations.