Officials from China and France pledged on Thursday to build a new type of economic partnership, while strengthening business cooperation.

"China and France continue to share remarkable economic complementarity, and they have huge potential for cooperation.

"The key is to innovate and expand the methods and areas of cooperation, enhance the openness of trade and investment and oppose all kinds of protectionism," Wan Jifei, chairman of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, told the 19th China-France Economic Seminar in Beijing.