Reply #73: China lies at heart of Europe's recovery, says Brussels

[Ghost Dog]

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Speaking on the eve of the eleventh EU-China summit to be held in Prague, European commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner highlighted the central role China will play in Europe's economic recovery.

"China is one of our most important partners in meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow," Ms Ferrero-Waldner told policymakers and diplomats gathered in Brussels for a conference on EU-China relations organised by Friends of Europe and the Security and Defence Agenda, a pair of Brussels think-tanks.

While Wednesday's (20 May) summit is to touch on a number of topics, including climate change and human rights, it is clear that the huge volumes of trade between the two sides form the backbone of their relationship.

On Monday, the EU's statistics office, Eurostat, released new figures showing the marked increase in trade volumes between the two sides over the last nine years.

Exports from the EU's 27 member states to China rose to €78 billion in 2008 compared to €26 billion in 2000, while its imports from China rose from €75 billion to €248 over the same period.

Yet despite the substantially increased trade deficit, the economic crisis is causing some EU policy makers to see China as part of the solution to the current economic downturn.

"The increasing Chinese middle-class is an attractive market for EU goods," said Ms Ferrero-Waldner, citing figures contained in a recent report published by the European Ideas Network that predicts China and India will account for 50 percent of the world economy by 2060.

The commission's director-general for trade, David O'Sullivan, also re-iterated this idea, saying that while competition with China in the coming years would be great, it would not result in a "zero-sum game," where one side's gain implicitly meant the other side's loss.

/... http://euobserver.com/9/28156