Leaders from China and the European Union (EU) kicked off their 11th summit in Prague, the Republic of Czech, on May 20 to exchange views on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is attending the summit along with EU leaders, including Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, and EU Commission President Jose Barroso.
The annual summit is a high-level political consultative mechanism between China and the EU.
Apart from bilateral trade, financial crisis and climate change were also high on the agenda of the summit.
At this summit, the two sides are expected to sign cooperation documents on research, climate protection and economics-trade, including cooperation among small and medium enterprises.
Last year, their bilateral trade volume exceeded 400 billion USD for the first time. The EU remains China's biggest trade partner and largest export market. Recently, the EU became China's largest source of imports while China remains the EU's second largest trade partner.
China and the EU established diplomatic ties in 1975, and expanded the ties to a comprehensive and strategic partnership in 2003./.