On the morning of October 29, 2015, Premier Li Keqiang held talks at the Great Hall of the People with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
Li Keqiang noted that both China and Germany are major economies in the world, and the high-level and mutually beneficial cooperation between two countries is not only in line with their respective economic and social development and conducive to building a new type of international relations featuring mutual benefits and win-win results, but also benefits world peace, stability and prosperity. China is willing to, together with the German side, continue earnestly implementing all consensus reached at last round of China-Germany inter-governmental consultation, further enhance mutual trust, elevate the level of bilateral cooperation in all sectors, and forge a "comprehensively upgraded version" of China-Germany cooperation.
In political area, the two sides should maintain close high-level exchanges, facilitate the construction of mechanisms at all levels and in all sectors, strengthen coordination in major international affairs, expand converging points of interests in politics, diplomacy, security, counter-terrorism and other sectors, carry out more substantive cooperation, and constantly enhance understanding and accumulate mutual trust in bilateral dialogues and cooperation.
In economic area, both nations should fully tap their complementary advantages, focus on forging new growth points in two-way investment, fiscal and financial cooperation, entrepreneurship and innovation cooperation and other fields, strive for early harvests in promoting the docking of "Made in China 2025" strategy with the "Industry 4.0" strategy of Germany, push for new progress in bilateral cooperation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), equipment manufacturing, industrial parks, intelligent manufacturing, renewable energy, and many other areas, and bring their respective advantages into play to explore the third-party cooperation in production capacity with developing countries, so as to realize mutual benefits, multi-win and all-win results.
With regards to people-to-people and cultural exchanges, both sides should further expand personnel exchanges and provide more convenience for it, intensify exchanges and cooperation between local governments, ensure the success of the "Year of China-Germany Youth Exchange" in 2016 by prioritizing youth exchanges and facilitation of personnel exchanges and forge the "future project" of China-Germany relations.
Li Keqiang pointed out that China-Germany relations and China-EU relations complement each other. China always views and develops its relations with the EU from a strategic and long-term perspective, firmly supports the European integration process, and backs the solidarity, stability and prosperity of Europe. It is hoped that as a major member of the EU, Germany could play an active propelling role in such areas as negotiations on China-EU investment agreement, feasibility study on the China-EU free trade area, facilitation of personnel exchanges, establishment of China-EU joint investment fund and construction of connectivity platform, striving for an early harvest and bringing more benefits to the people.
Angela Merkel expressed that Germany and China enjoy extensive and in-depth cooperation, with economic, trade and financial cooperation being constantly advanced and close coordination being maintained in major international and regional issues. The consensus reached at last round of Germany-China inter-governmental consultation has been well implemented. Germany is willing to, based on the sound foundation of existing bilateral cooperation, take concerted and coordinated steps with China to further boost dialogues at all levels, expand cooperation fields, improve the level of cooperation, enhance innovation cooperation, forge new growth points for bilateral cooperation, facilitate local exchanges, ensure the success of the events commemorating the Year of Germany-China Youth Exchange next year, and thus push bilateral relations for greater development.
Both sides also exchanged in-depth views on international and regional topics of common interests.
Prior to the talks, Li Keqiang held a welcome ceremony for Angela Merkel at the square outside the East Gate of the Great Hall of the People. Vice Chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Li Haifeng and others were present.
After the talks, the Chinese Premier and German Chancellor witnessed the signing of 13 cooperation documents covering youth exchanges, finance, transportation, telecommunications, industry, health care and other sectors.