Minister Chen Deming held talks with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in Beijing on February 24. The two sides exchanged views on implementing the consensus reached at the Tenth Meeting between Chinese and European Leaders, preparing the China-EU high level economic and trade dialogue mechanism, which is hopefully to start this April. The new mechanism will cover IPR protection, China-EU trade, investment and market access.

As the trade deficit becomes bigger and bigger in China's trade with EU, the new mechanism is regarded as a buffer zone to deal with conflicts of two parties in trade and investment. EU hopes the new mechanism will provide a new solution channel for problems EU enterprises have in their business activities in China, especially in the fields of investment, market access and IPR protection.

Setting up China-EU high level economic and trade dialogue mechanism is initiated by China, and was discussed in the talk between senior leaders of two parties in last November in Beijing. As a Vice-Primer level dialogue mechanism, leaders of European Commission and State Council of China will attend it, so as to settle the short-run and long-term problems in China-EU trade, investment and economic cooperation.