China – Meeting between Franck Riester and the Chinese Commerce Minister (25 May 2021)

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Franck Riester, Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness, attached to the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, met today with Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China.

The Minister Delegate reiterated the importance of continuing to implement the Sino-French roadmap established in 2019 by President Macron and President Xi Jinping. In this regard, he emphasized the need to rebalance economic exchanges between our two countries, which are very dynamic in the areas of agribusiness, aviation, energy, the green economy and sustainable cities, reciprocally ensuring better market access and fair treatment of our companies. He also reaffirmed the importance to our bilateral economic relationship of facilitating free movement by members of our countries’ business communities. The two ministers underscored the need to strengthen trade despite the difficulties linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

They applauded the recent appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Mr. Riester stressed the importance of strengthening the multilateral trading system, reaffirming France’s support for launching negotiations on competitive neutrality at the Twelfth WTO Ministerial Conference. The ministers also discussed Sino-European trade relations. In this regard, Mr. Riester called for the exemplary implementation of the agreement protecting geographical indications that entered in force on March 1.