French President Jacques Chirac arrived on Friday evening in
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan
Province, to start a five-day state visit to China as the guest
of President Hu
Jintao.
Vice President?Zeng?Qinghong?met Chirac and his wife
Bernadette at the airport. Also on the trip are French Foreign
Minister Michel Barnier, Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de
Vabres and External Commerce Minister Francois Loos.
On Saturday morning in Chengdu, the French president delivered a
speech on the economic partnership between
China and France, the main theme of a visit on which he is
accompanied by around 50 industrialists.
Chirac is flying to Beijing on Saturday afternoon, where he is
scheduled to meet with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and
Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the 10th National
People’s Congress.
Chirac will attend Sunday’s French Culture Year in China opening
ceremonies, including an aerobatics show by Patrouille de France,
the demonstration team of the French Air Force.
Before departing on his Asia trip, Chirac has expressed his
belief that China’s development provides opportunities for economic
growth and job creation in France.
“France
must seize this chance. It has the capacity to be the partner of
reference for China in many areas in which the strong features of
the French economy can match the needs of China,” said presidential
spokesman Jerome Bonnafont.
China and France have a similar outlook on many political
issues, but France lags behind other European Union countries in
terms of investment in China.
France is China’s fourth-largest trading partner in the EU, well
behind Germany, although bilateral trade grew strongly to US$13.4
billion last year and is expected to jump another 40 percent this
year.
Chirac and the industrialists traveling with him will launch a
“concerted offensive” to win a larger slice of China’s market, said
Bonnafont.
Deals in energy resources, transport and aviation are expected
to be signed during Chirac’s stay.
He started his Asian tour on Tuesday in Vietnam, where he
attended the fifth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Hanoi.
At a press briefing after the summit, Chirac said that France is
in favor of lifting the EU weapons embargo on China.
The situation in China is now quite different from what it was
when the embargo was put in place 15 years ago, he noted. China has
complied with rules regarding weapons whether the embargo is
imposed or not, and the ban is pointless.
Chirac indicated that most EU countries agree that the weapons
embargo should be lifted, and that he hopes the EU members will
resolve the problem with a satisfactory agreement.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily October 9, 2004)