China, GCC to deepen coop. in trade, investment - Min.

TOKYO, Oct 22 (KUNA) -- China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Sunday agreed to deepen exchange and cooperation in areas including trade and investment, the digital economy, sustainable development and infrastructure, Chinese state media reported, citing the ministry of commerce.

The agreement came at an economic and trade ministerial meeting held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the Global Times reported, saying it was a concrete action to implement the economic and trade achievements of the first China-Arab States Summit and the China-GCC Summit, as well as to promote the deepening of China-GCC economic and trade cooperation under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the report said.
During the meeting, the two sides reached a broad consensus on topics such as jointly safeguarding the multilateral trading system, promoting two-way investment, deepening cooperation in the industry chain and supply chain, upgrading the level of connectivity and promoting energy transformation, it said.
Describing the prospect of greater cooperation as "broad," Beijing's Commerce Minister Wang Wenato said that Chinese modernization will bring new opportunities for China-GCC cooperation. The GCC member states are actively promoting industrial diversification, and the prospects for China-GCC economic and trade cooperation are broad.
Wang noted that the two sides will reach an early agreement on a free trade agreement, support and promote World arras Organization (WTO) reform and actively promote the operation of the joint investment commission and support cooperation between sovereign wealth funds from both sides. China and the GCC will work together to promote industrial synergy and deepen the "oil and gas cooperation model" and encourage enterprises of both sides to carry out investment and cooperation in line with market-oriented principles, Wang said. The two sides will also pragmatically explore opportunities for infrastructure cooperation in areas such as ports, aviation, communications and pipelines.
They agreed to "deepen exchanges and cooperation in trade and investment," the digital economy, sustainable development, infrastructure and other areas based on platforms such as the economic and trade ministerial meeting, so as to continuously cultivate new growth points of economic and trade cooperation between China and the GCC, said the ministry. (end) mk.nam.