French President Macron visits Beijing
January 16, 2018 Category VIP visits, Weekly
French President Emmanuel Macron met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing last week. Xi said China stands ready to work closely with France to enhance cooperation including under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative, to which Macron replied that France would like to take an active part in the initiative. Macron began his three-day visit in Xian as a gesture to Xi’s New Silk Road project to connect Asia and Europe by road, rail and sea. Macron said the Belt & Road Initiative “represents a real opportunity to create bridges, through exchange, between countries and civilizations, just as the ancient silk routes once did”.
Both Presidents oversaw the signing of business deals worth billions of dollars in nuclear, aviation and other key sectors, including a memorandum of understanding for Areva and Chinese counterpart CNNC to build a €10 billion nuclear spent fuel reprocessing plant in China.
Airbus announced an agreement with Chinese partners to increase production of its A320 jet in Tianjin to six aircraft per month. A contract for the sale of 184 Airbus A320 narrow-body jets is expected to be finalized soon and Airbus also hopes to sell mid-range A350 and long-haul A380 passenger jets to China. Chinese officials assured Macron that they would respect market-share parity between Airbus and Boeing.
Chinese online retailer JD.com announced plans to sell French goods worth €2 billion to Chinese consumers over the next two years, including wine and cognac. China also agreed to lift a 16-year-old embargo on the import of French beef within six months. “Our beef currently has no access to China for sanitary reasons. But with French beef consumption falling 5% a year, we have to find new markets,” said Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, who was traveling with Macron, together with about 50 French business leaders. China imports nearly 1.1 million tons of beef a year, with 90% currently coming from Brazil, Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand. French officials also said talks were continuing about China’s ban on French poultry, imposed in 2015 after an outbreak of bird flu.
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