Moving up the scale

Hugo Swire, a member of Parliament and minister of state at the British Foreign Office, said the UK is committed to boosting national prosperity through trade and investment and that China will clearly play a crucial role. "China is changing at a rapid pace and opportunities will increase as the economy rebalances," said Swire.

He was confident that the products in which the UK excels - luxury goods and cars, advanced machinery and educational services - will easily meet the demand from China's expanding middle class.

Swire said Chinese companies are also going global and operating successfully in the UK. According to the UK Ministry of Commerce, the country was the fifth-largest destination for Chinese investment last year. "We will continue to encourage more; we want to move up that scale from fifth to first, and we're working on it," said Swire.

Prodi echoed Swire's view and urged China's leaders to prioritize Europe as an economic partner because the EU is generally more open than the US when it comes to accepting Chinese investment and exports.

Prodi said he had met Li Keqiang twice in recent years. "He has a very open, direct personality, is a specialist in economic affairs and has deep political experience," he said.

Li's grasp of the importance of good relations between the EU and China was crucial. "He (Li) understood how important it is, not only for Europe, but also for China, for us to have strong relations," he said.

Dacian Ciolos, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said the world faces a common challenge in terms of food security and ensuring agricultural productivity and competitiveness, while minimizing the impact on the environment.

Ciolos said the EU and China can learn a lot from each other and share ideas on the optimum development of rural areas and a balanced rural-urban development, in addition to increasing investment into agricultural research.

Meanwhile, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, European commissioner for research, innovation and science, said research and innovation are key to sustainable growth and jobs and a higher quality of life in the future, both for the EU and China.

"We see the government of China as being very committed to developing the dialogue," she said. Geoghegan-Quinn expects to see real progress this year and in 2014 in ensuring that research bodies and industry in China and the EU can better cooperate to develop the real innovations that people need.

She said that China has a strong science and technology base and is one of the world's leading nations in the registration of patents and the knowledge-based economy: "One of the hurdles we must overcome is the creation of the right environment to boost innovation."

For example, if the EU and China can create common standards for different products it will be easier for them to market those technologies, a factor that would provide greater incentives for industry to invest in them. "The development of those conditions will be something we can discuss in our dialogue on cooperation in innovation," she said.

Van Rompuy also said China's confidence in, and support of, the process of European integration - especially now, during the ongoing debt crisis - has been of great importance to the EU and has further promoted cooperation between the trading bloc and China.

"Of course, partnership is a two-way street," he said.

Tuo Yannan and Liu Jia contributed to this story in Brussels.

Contact the reporters at [email protected]