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July 1, 2015

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France rolls out red carpet for Premier Li

Source: AFP | July 1, 2015, Wednesday | Print Edition

Premier Li Keqiang yesterday began a three-day visit to France which will see dozens of economic accords between the two nations.

Li was due to meet his counterpart Manuel Valls before holding a press conference later in the day.

France is rolling out the red carpet for Li with “very high level” protocol treatment on his visit, according to diplomatic sources.

His trip comes six months after Valls traveled to Beijing and called for more French products to be exported to China to “rebalance” trade between the two countries.

China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Chao said the mutual visits showed the “high level” of relations between the two countries.

France, which is struggling with weak growth and record-high unemployment, imports two and a half times as much from China as flows in the opposite direction. In 2013, Paris ran a 26 billion euro (US$29 billion) deficit with China.

More than 50 commercial and industrial accords are expected to be signed during Li’s trip including “significant contracts for tens of billions of euros” with European aerospace giant Airbus, energy group Alstom, French container shipping company CMA-CGM and French electricity giant Engie, said sources close to Valls.

Paris is in particular hoping that Chinese companies will order the Airbus A330 and A330-Neo in return for Airbus investment in a center at its Tianjin base which will allow China to “customize” its A330s.

The two nations are also expected to sign an agreement on joint infrastructure projects in Asian and African countries.

China, which is seeing a slowdown in domestic demand, is pushing its companies to seek new markets abroad and could take advantage of French experience in these markets.

Both countries agreed to set up a mutual fund to support their joint cooperation with third parties in an agreement reached during Li’s meeting with French President Francois Hollande yesterday.

Today, Li will head to Marseille where he will meet Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who has visited China several times in the past year. He will wrap up his tour in Toulouse where he and Valls will attend a France-China seminar.

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