China, Germany ink 19 agreements as Merkel visits
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-05-22 15:59
China and Germany signed a batch of 19 agreements on the first day of
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's China visit, including a memorandum of
understanding to cooperate in establishing high-speed railway transport in
China.
Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao (R) gestures as he talks with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel at the signing ceremony of China-Germany agreements in Beijing
May 22, 2006. [newsphoto] |
Under this
agreement, Germany will cooperate in building China's high-speed rail system, at
200 kilometers per hour, according to a Xinhua report.
Merkel, and her host, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, were present at the signing
ceremony of the agreements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Magnetic-levitation technology is a new field for China-Germany cooperation,
but there was no indication of whether Beijing planned to buy more German
technology for magnetic-levitation railways.
China has the world's only
commercially operating maglev rail line in Shanghai, linking Pudong
International Airport with downtown Shanghai, built by a German consortium that
included Thyssenkrupp AG and Siemens AG.
China announced in March that
it would add a 175-kilometer (110-mile) maglev line to the nearby city of
Hangzhou at a cost of 35 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion, but hasn't said what role
foreign contractors might play.
These documents mainly cover such fields
as railway technology, financial cooperation, high tech dialogue,
telecommunications, energy, culture and sports. The two sides also signed a
memorandum of understanding on the protection of intellectual property in
textile industry.
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