China pledges closer legislature cooperation with EU

BRUSSELS - The head of the Mission of China to the European Union (EU) Yang Yanyi pledged on Wednesday that China's legislature body will have a closer cooperation with that of the EU.

She made the remarks when addressing a plenary session of the Delegation of European Parliament for Relations with China.

"The frequent exchanges between the National People's Congress (NPC) of China and the European Parliament, though there was a lapse last year due to election here in the EU, are very much in tune with the overall trend of our bilateral ties," she said.

Yang said 2015 will be an exciting and challenging year for China-EU relations, as China has entered a crucial stage of realizing its goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, and the EU, under the leadership of its new team, is committed to making a difference on the big economic and social challenges and delivering change.

Moreover, China and the EU are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year, she noted, adding that to build up the momentum for China-EU relations, China and the EU will hold the 17th leaders' summit in the coming spring.

"The summit will chart the future direction of China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and outline concrete steps to turn our shared vision into reality," she said.

During the over an hour long meeting, Yang also answered questions put forward by the Parliament members in areas such as trade deficit and cultural cooperation.

In 2014, trade between China and the EU reached over $615 billion, up by 9.9 percent year-on-year. Investment stock of EU enterprises to China reached around $95 billion. China's investment stock to the EU reached $49 billion.

And the first three rounds of negotiations on a China-EU Investment Agreement, covering investment protection and market access, were conducted last year.

The European Parliament's delegation for relations with China, which now groups 30-strong members, was established following the first direct elections in 1979 and inter-parliamentary meetings have being taking place since 1980.

The main task of the delegation is to maintain relations with the NPC through regular inter-parliamentary meetings.