Asia Links
- June 4th, 2007
- Posted by EUEditor
European authorities took the opportunity of the recent Asia – Europe Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Germany to meet China’s new Minister and organise a partnership agreement with Vietnam. An EU-Japan summit follows.
TALKING TRADE WITH JAPAN
Government representatives of Japan and the European Union are meeting this week (5.6.07) at Berlin for a summit expected to concentrate on trade issues. Figures just released in Europe show that Japan remains the EU’s fifth most important trading partner, accounting for 4% of EU exports and 6% of imports – despite falls in the level of imports from Japan. The Eurostat figures show Europe’s trade deficit with Japan dropped from EU 46.6-billion (A$75.3-billion, dcerates.com, 4.6.07) in 2000 to EU32.1-billion (A$51.9-billion) last year.
CHINA AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The new Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, met his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier (from the EU Presidency), the EU External Relations Commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and EU High Representative Javier Solana, during wider Asian-European talks (28.5.07) in Hamburg. They discussed a new two-way partnership agreement, along with human rights, Taiwan, international relations more generally, and, ahead of this week’s G8 gathering, the problem of reducing pollution to deal with climate change. China this week (3.6.07) announced it would adopt targets for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, but would insist on continued expansion of its economy.
VIETNAM PARTNERSHIP
Vietnam and the European Union are to forge a partnership agreement building on existing cooperation in transnational crime prevention, migration and the environmental protection. The European Commission said Vietnam would join six other South-east Asian countries with which it had Partnership and Cooperation Agreements – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Its dealings with Vietnam would extend into other areas like higher education and research and technology development.