Austrian Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel attended a luncheon session of the Boao Forum for Asia Saturday in Boao, Hainan Province, and talked about ways to strengthen cooperation between Asia and Europe.

The Austrian Federal Chancellor told a luncheon session of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) on Saturday that, due to its rapid economic growth, Asia has become one of the most important destinations for European investment.

Wolfgang Schuessel emphasized that both Europe and Asia have seen a lot of trade contact in the past and talked about ways to strengthen cooperation between them in the future.

He said the past decade has witnessed sound and rapid development in Euro-Asian cooperation. Asia's economic rise has become the focus of world attention, while ten new member states joined the EU last year. Schuessel spoke about how common interests could be built on to deepen cooperation in these circumstances.

The chancellor said that Austria, which itself does a lot of trade with Asian countries, has invested much in eastern Europe as encouraging business opportunities there have increased, and so provides a good platform for Asia to do business there as well.

Regional security and stability have become common concerns, and it is more necessary to create a network of regional cooperation, Schuessel said. Globalization is key to the development of bilateral relations, and in the future, both Europe and Asia should further enhance cooperation not only in trade and economy, but also in political and cultural fields.

The Asia-Europe Meeting process (ASEM) was established almost a decade ago to strengthen cooperation, said Wei Jiafu, president of the shipping company COSCO, at the same session, and both sides need to find ways to realize their immediate, mid- and long-term objectives.

Schuessel arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a seven-day state visit. After talks with Premier Wen Jiabao, five agreements were signed on areas including bilateral cooperation in animal quarantine and health, reciprocal exemption from taxation on revenues from international air transport and promotion of mutual investment.

In terms of ties with China, he told reporters before leaving Vienna that the development of relations is of special significance for the EU and Austria, and Austria will further advance relations with China after it takes the rotating EU presidency in January 2006.

He said EU enterprises take a great interest in cooperation with China. As for issues like the textile trade and China's full market economy status, he said if the two sides handle and resolve them in a rational way, they will achieve a mutually beneficial result.

Trade volume between China and Austria rose to more than 3 billion euros (US$3.87 billion) in 2004.

After attending the BFA annual conference in Boao, in China's southernmost province Hainan, Schuessel will visit Shanghai and Jiangsu Province in the east of the country.

(China.org.cn by staff reporter Shao Da, April 25, 2005)