A China-EU accord on investments could be signed by the end of this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Sunday at a conference in Paris.
Exalting the ties between China and Europe which, he said, have the responsibility to work on making the world more stable, the Foreign Minister said: “I am thinking of the investment agreement,” which has been under negotiation for years.
“We have the possibility of concluding it before the end of the year. It is more important than ever to take a step,” Wang Yi told the conference at the French Institute of International Relations, IFRI, in Paris.
The Chinese diplomatic chief added that the two sides had important traditions of political openness that should save them from being bogged down by technical details.
For about seven years now, China and the EU have been negotiating a foreign investment protection accord that covers many of the concerns raised by Washington in its trade war against China: respect for intellectual property rights, an end to technology transfers imposed on foreign companies and subsidies for Chinese public companies.
The Europeans had made clear their disappointment at the slow pace of negotiations at an EU-China summit in June. Another summit between the two sides was to have been held in September but was postponed because of the novel Coronavirus.
The Brussels Times
