China, France sign contracts worth 20 billion USD

Chinese companies and French partners signed eight contracts and cooperation deals worth a total of 14 billion EUR (roughly 20 billion USD) on November 4.
Chinese companies and French partners signed eight contracts and cooperation deals worth a total of 14 billion EUR (roughly 20 billion USD) on November 4.

The contracts and deals were inked during Chinese State President Hu Jintao’s three-day official visit to France as a guest of his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.

World leading energy group AREVA will supply around 20,000 tonnes of uranium worth 3.5 billion USD to the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation (CGNPC) over the next ten years.

Airbus will sell 102 aircraft, including 50 A320s, 42 A330s and 10 A350s worth 14 billion USD to four Chinese airlines – CASC, Air China , China Eastern and China Southern.

Meanwhile, France ’s largest oil and gas group Total is planning to cooperate with China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) to build a petrochemical and liquefied gas plant in China , with an estimated investment of 2-3 billion EUR (2.83-4.25 billion USD).

An additional 16-18 contracts and framework agreements are expected to be signed between China and France on November 5, including three supply contracts worth 1.1 billion USD between Alcatel-Lucent and China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

With the signing of these contracts and agreements, Beijing hopes to raise two-way trade with France to 80 billion USD a year, double the current level.

At their talks on Nov. 4, both Hu and Sarkozy affirmed the resolve to further step up the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Hu said China would support France ’s efforts to successfully assume the rotating presidency of the G20 Summit as of November 12 in Seoul , the Republic of Korea .

For his part, Sarkozy urged China to establish partnership in developing civil nuclear and uranium mining projects./.

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