"We hope to work with the EU to strengthen cooperation in energy conservation and environmental protection," he said.

As for deepening cooperation in agriculture and service sector, Wen said Europe has advanced agricultural technologies and has much to offer to China in greenhouse technology and industrial management of agriculture.

China and the EU can deepen cooperation in rural development, poverty alleviation, agricultural ecology, quality of agricultural products and animal health, he added.

"As the EU has an advanced service sector, the two sides have great potential for cooperation in this field," he added.

As for promoting cooperation between SMEs, the premier said the EU is renowned as a "kingdom" of SMEs and Chinese and European SMEs are mutually complementary in capital, technology, business model and management.

"The Chinese government has adopted a series of policies to support SMEs and industrial parks for European SMEs have been opened in some Chinese cities," he said.

"We encourage SMEs from both sides to make full use of the existing platform and expand cooperation in technology transfer, market sharing, processing trade and human resources," he added.

"In the new century, our peoples can surely, through hard work and drawing on their wisdom, create a more splendid future. Let us join hands and work together to raise China-EU economic cooperation and trade to a new height," he concluded.

Some 500 senior business leaders attended the 2006 China-Europe business summit on Tuesday to discuss strategies for boosting the China-EU economic and technological cooperation.

1

2