China’s premier, Li Keqiang, has criticised investment flows between the EU and China as “hardly satisfactory” and made a strong appeal for the early conclusion of a bilateral treaty that would give Chinese companies a smoother path to acquiring European counterparts.
Mr Li, who yesterday was in Brussels to co-chair the 17th China-EU summit, also called for the two sides to start a feasibility study for a free trade area to resist protectionism and boost connectivity between Asia and Europe.
“The scale of two-way investment, a mere $20bn or less in 2014, is hardly satisfactory given the big size of the Chinese and EU economies and the huge volume of two-way trade,” Mr Li said in written answers to questions from the Financial Times and several other European newspapers.