Chinese president ends visit to Britain
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-11-11 08:32

LONDON -- Chinese President Hu Jintao left London for Berlin on Thursday after concluding his state visit to Britain, which was aimed at promoting the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

During his visit, President Hu met with Queen Elizabeth II, held talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and held meetings with leaders of the British Parliament and political parties.

The two sides exchanged views on further development of the comprehensive strategic partnership established between the two countries last year, and discussed major world and regional issues of common interest.

In recent years, the Sino-British relations have shown good momentum with exchanges of high-level visits, increases in bilateral trade and investments, and expansion of cooperation in various fields.

Britain remains the biggest European Union investor in China and China's third largest trading partner within the European bloc.

In 2004, the volume of trade between the two countries reached 19.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 37 percent over the previous year. In the first eight months of this year, the bilateral trade stood at 15.4 billion dollars, or up by 27.4 percent over the same period of 2004.

Britain is the first leg of President Hu's four-nation tour, which will also take him to Germany, Spain and South Korea.

Hu will also attend the Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) scheduled to be held on Nov. 18-19 in Busan, South Korea.

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