Business to Dominate PM's Trip to GermanyChinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji arrives in Berlin Thursday for his first official visit to Germany as head of government, on the second stage of a European tour.Business and economic matters will dominate his four-day German stop, German officials indicated Wednesday, although not entirely so, they stressed. China is Germany's third most important commercial partner after the United States and Japan. Total trade between them in 1999 amounted to 40.3 billion marks (about 20 billion dollars/euros). Zhu will meet the heads of major German firms including Bayer, BMW and Daimler on Thursday. The official part of Zhu's visit begins Friday when he holds talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. No major contract is expected to be signed during the visit, German officials said. However, agreements for two feasibility studies are expected, one for a possible link between the airport and the city centre of Shanghai by a German magnetic monorail system, the other for a project to reduce the amount of polluting coal-burning in China. After his talks with Schroeder, the Chinese Premier is to give a talk in Berlin Friday to the Asia-Pacific Commission of the Federation of German Industry. Later Friday he holds talks with political figures including Berlin mayor Eberhard Diepgen and parliamentary speaker Wolfgang Thierse. Friday evening he and his wife Lao An are the dinner guests of Schroeder and his wife Doris. On Saturday the Chinese prime minister is scheduled to have breakfast with former chancellor Helmut Kohl before holding talks with the German head of state Johannes Rau. He will also meet the leader of the Christian Democrat opposition, Angela Merkel. After a visit to Potsdam, Zhu flies to Hamburg where he will breakfast Sunday with Helmut Schmidt, who preceded Kohl as chancellor, and make a visit to the test and development centre of the Transrapid magnetic train that Germany hopes to sell the Chinese. He will conclude his stay in Germany with a visit to the Chinese and the German pavilions at the Expo 2000 world's fair in Hanover in the company of Schroeder. Zhu, who arrives from Bulgaria, continues on to Luxemburg. |
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