Premier assures French firms of China's economic prospect

TOULOUSE - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday assured the French business community of China's economic prospect and invited them to invest in the world's second-largest economy, before wrapping up his official visit to France.

Li made the remarks while addressing a business summit in Toulouse in southern France on the last day of his four-day visit to the country. He called for industrial and energy cooperation and joint efforts in exploring third-party markets.

Amid a slow and difficult global economic recovery and increasing downward pressure for emerging economies, the world closely follows China's economic trend, Li said.

"The Chinese economy is generally stable in the first six months. We have confidence in achieving the goal of around 7 percent growth for the whole year," he said.

China is taking steps to counter downward pressure, by working to enhance economic regulation, promote structural reform and make the proactive fiscal policy more effective and cultivate a transparent, stable and healthy capital market, according to the Chinese premier.

"The French business community can be assured that there is great potential in the Chinese market and great flexibility in the economy," he said.

Welcoming French enterprises to invest in China, he also promised Chinese enterprises will be encouraged to invest in France, calling on the European country to offer better environment for Chinese businesses.

The premier visited the headquarters of Airbus, the world's leading aircraft manufacturer after attending the business summit. China has signed a deal with France on purchasing 45 Airbus A330 passenger planes on Tuesday.

Aviation has long been a priority for cooperation between the two countries. China and France jointly opened a manufacturing plant in China's northern coastal city, Tianjin in 2008, which has assembled a total of 207 A320s by far.

France is the second leg of Premier Li's Europe trip. He came to France from Belgium after meeting with Belgian leaders and attending the 17th China-EU leaders' meeting.

Arriving Paris on Monday night, Li met with French leaders and visited the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He also visited Marseille, the second-largest city of France.