China and the European Union yesterday agreed to increase exchanges on food safety standards to boost agricultural produce trade between the two sides.

China's product quality watchdog and its EU counterpart also touched on China's poultry product exports to the EU area amid the outbreak of bird flu. But the two sides refused to elaborate on the details of the negotiation.

The EU's export of meat, fruit, and cosmetic products to China were also listed on the agenda.

Li Changjiang, head of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection Markas Kyprianou also agreed to come up with more ways to tackle bird flu.

The commissioner was invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend the international pledging conference on combating bird flu and human influenza, jointly organized by the Chinese Government, the EU and World Bank tomorrow.

The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen negotiation on regulations and standards on agricultural products in a bid to remove unnecessary trade obstacles.

China and the EU will conduct more co-operation in exchanging information, personnel training and rapid reaction related to boosting agricultural produce trade.

The steps are follow-up action after China and the EU set up a negotiation mechanism on industrial product safety and the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO/TBT) in 2002.

The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade WTO/TBT and food safety and animal and plant health measures (sanitary and phytosanitary or SPS measures) are the basic rules in the WTO to ensure smooth and safe trade among its members.

Industry insiders said yesterday's signing is timely as the EU adopted stricter food safety regulations from the beginning of 2006 and the information exchange will help Chinese producers better understand those standards.

Li said technical regulations and product standards may vary from country to country and negotiation is the best choice to remove unnecessary obstacles.

The EU continued to be China's largest trade partner in 2005, with bilateral trade of US$217.3 billion, up 22.6 per cent year-on-year. China was the EU's second largest trading partner.

However, despite the achievements made by the two sides, there are still disputes between China and the EU over other trade issues.

Last year, the EU launched several dumping investigations against various Chinese products such as shoes, while quotas on Chinese textiles remain one of the strickiest issues in their trade ties.

Bo Xilai, minister of commerce said, the number of disputed areas in China-EU trade is "very small," and so do not hamper the smooth expansion of the China-EU economic and trade cooperation.

Source: China Daily