Chinese premier ends European tour in London

Source: Xinhua | 02-03-2009 08:21

LONDON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday left London, and flew back to Beijing, ending his week-long five European countries trip.

Wen arrived in London on Saturday for his three-day official visit. During his visit, Wen had talks with his British counterpart Gordon Brown on various issues, mainly focusing on the financial crisis. And Wen had broad contacts with people from political, business and financial circles of Britain, and he also delivered a speech at the University of Cambridge.

The trip is a return visit for Brown's China tour early last year. It is also aimed at implementing the annual meeting mechanism of the two leaders.

Britain is the last leg of his week-long European tour, which began Tuesday and has already taken him to Switzerland, Germany, the European Union headquarters in Brussels and Spain.

Wen's European tour was called by China's Foreign Ministry as a "trip of confidence," which would set out China's determination to stick to reform and opening up, boost economic development, deepen Sino-EU cooperation and join hands with international community to tide over the financial crisis.

On Monday, Wen said that China and European countries should strengthen cooperation to deal with global financial crisis.

Speaking at a joint news conference after talks with his Brown, Wen said that during his week-long "trip of confidence" to five European countries, he met with European leaders for talks on issues of common concern, especially the global financial crisis, and achieved "fruitful" results.

Editor:Liu Anqi