China and the European Union agreed to establish a trade policy dialogue mechanism in Beijing Thursday.

At the 19th meeting of the China-Europe Joint Committee of Economy and Trade, Wei Jianguo, vice minister of commerce, said the Chinese government attaches great importance to trade cooperation with the European Union and the policy documents that the two sides issued recently have shown the direction of development.

Wei said China is willing to work with the EU to realize at an early day the goal "to become each other's largest trade and investment partner".

To realize the goal, Wei said China has set specific aims, for bilateral trade volume to reach US$150 billion by 2007, US$200 billion by 2013 and US$280 billion by 2020.

Trade Commissioner of the EU Commission, Pascal Lamy, said he hopes the two sides maintain frequent dialogue and strengthen coordination by the trade policy dialogue mechanism.

As to whether to grant China "complete market economy status", Lamy said the EU is working on it and will decide no later than the first half of 2004.

After the meeting, the two sides signed a document which starts a dialogue mechanism on intellectual property.

According to statistics from the Chinese General Administration of Customs, bilateral trade volume in 2002 was US$86.76 billion and that of the first nine months was US$89.06 billion, up 41.5 percent year-on-year.

China and the EU became each other's third largest trade partners. The EU is also the fourth largest foreign direct investment source and the largest technology import source for China.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2003)