Premier Li’s European Tour Promotes China’s Cooperation with European Countries

From April 8 to 12, Premier Li Keqiang traveled to Brussels, Belgium for the 21st China-EU Leaders’ Meeting and to Croatia for an official visit and the 8th Summit of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and China.

Li co-chaired the China-EU leaders’ meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on April 9. A joint statement was released after the meeting.

Both sides pledged to build their economic relationship on openness, non-discrimination, and fair competition, ensuring a level playing field and transparency.

“China and the EU commit to ensure equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation in bilateral trade and investment,” the statement said, reiterating the two sides’ willingness to enhance bilateral economic cooperation, trade, and investment, and to provide each other with broader and more facilitated, non-discriminatory market access.

On April 12, Li attended the 8th China-CEEC Summit in Dubrovnik with leaders of the CEECs.

In his speech, Li Keqiang put forward proposals on furthering China-CEEC cooperation, touching on such aspects as jointly upholding the multilateral trading system, further expanding China-CEEC trade volume, promoting cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, stepping up efforts to expand innovation cooperation, advancing cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and on industrial park construction, and deepening people-to-people and cultural exchanges and cooperation.

Leaders of the CEECs noted that all sides are ready to take this summit as an opportunity to fully support the implementation of CEEC-China cooperation projects, further promote connectivity and infrastructure construction, actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, continuously expand trade volume, jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade, and increase exchanges in fields across the board.