Commerce Minister Chen Deming headed the Chinese government trade and economic delegation to visit Israel and Palestine at invitation from February 27 to March 2. At the close of his visit, Minister Chen accepted an interview by Xinhua News Agency reporter and answered his questions about the visit and the trade and economic cooperation between China and Israel, Palestine

Minister Chen said, Israel is the pioneer and example of “innovation economy” worldwide and is one of China's important economic and trade partners in west Asia. At present, China is accelerating its pace of the transformation of the economic growth mode and industrial upgrading while Israel is holding to perfect its “technology-oriented” development strategy. The two countries enjoy the huge potential in cooperation and great prospect in development. Chen said that his visit aimed to consolidate the foundation of China-Israel trade and economic cooperation and further expand and deepen the cooperation.

During his visit to Israel, Minister Chen held talks with Israeli President Peres and Prime Minister Netanyahu, co-chaired with Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Shalom Simhon the 5th Session of China-Israel Joint Committee on Economy and Trade where the two sides had in-depth exchanges of views on hi-tech cooperation, bilateral trade and industrial investment and made quite a number of consensus, and visited Israeli enterprises engaged in high technologies. In addition, Minister Chen, accompanied by about 30 Chinese businessmen, attended China-Israel Business Forum on March 2 in Jerusalem to have exchanges and discussion on the cooperation prospect with representatives in the Forum.

During his visit to Palestine, Minister Chen called upon Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, signed an agreement on aid to Palestine with Palestinian Consultant of Foreign Affairs. Besides, Minister Chen held talks with Minister for Economy. The two sides exchanged views on further promoting the development of China-Palestine friendly partnership and made consensus.

Chen stated that Palestine is China’s good friend and bilateral friendly cooperation relationship is constantly deepening. This visit to Palestine aimed to implement the consensus on deepening friendly cooperation relationship made by leaders of the two countries, discuss on effective methods and measures for boosting bilateral trade and economic cooperation under the new situation, and further promote the pragmatic cooperation in trade and economy of the two sides.

When it comes to recent trade and economic exchanges of the two countries, Chen introduced that with the common efforts, the considerable progress was made in the trade and economic cooperation of the two countries with three features: first, bilateral trade is expanding by 150 times than that in the beginning of the establishment of China-Palestine diplomatic ties, reaching $7.7 billion in 2010; second, approaches to cooperation are increasing from trade to hi-tech cooperation and venture capital; third, sectors of trade and economic cooperation are expanding from agriculture to seawater desalination, bio-medicine, renewable energy, telecommunication and information technology; fourth, the trade and economic cooperation is diversified. While
cooperation between the two governments is pushed forward steadily, regional cooperation develops fast.

According to Chen, China's market and manufacturing capacity, plus Israeli hi-tech background, will give the mutual cooperation a promising future. Chen highlighted that the agricultural cooperation between the two countries is the light spot in applied technology. In 1993, the two ministries of agriculture signed MOU on agricultural cooperation and cited a series of programs in succession. Israeli drip irrigation system has been adopted in China. A 2009 joint research plan to treat waste water using nano-technology has been completed and put into use.

Hi-tech cooperation is the emphasis for the two countries. In 2008, the two countries signed the MOU on Cooperation in High Technology and established China-Israel Hi-tech Cooperation Promotion Center, which vigorously boosted the two-way visits of Chinese and Israeli enterprises, technology transfer, investment merger and acquisition. And Israel has advantages in the green economy and low-carbon technology, which is an orientation for China’s industrial technology development in the future. China will give priority to pushing forward the cooperation with Israel in green industry like renewable energy, water processing, bio-medicine, energy-saving and emission reduction as well as electronic information.

Chen said, Israeli strategy of “flourishing country by science and technology” gives a reference to China’s economic development. Although the natural and social conditions of the economic development are not sound, Israel has successfully transformed from a behindhand agricultural country to a strong country featured its knowledge and technology-intensive industry after decades of efforts.

The success of Israeli economic transformation has a lot of reasons and the most important reason is to hold on the strategy of flourishing country by science and technology and system innovation. The ratio of Israeli expenses of science and education in its GDP ranked the first worldwide. Israel established and improved the industrial development system and innovation system which pushed forward the fast development hi-tech industry and made it become the mainstay of the national economy.

Chen stated that during the 12th Five-Year-Plan, China will accelerate the adjustment of its economic structure and industrial upgrading, and boost its economy into the strategic development stage of “innovation-driven and endogenous growth”. Based on real conditions, China will study Israeli development experiences and put into use through enhancing the cooperation with Israel. Firstly, China will increase bringing in advanced technologies and hi-tech products from Israel, serving for reforming traditional industries; secondly, the two sides will take further measures to encourage the joint research and development of enterprises from the two countries and improve the level of their R&D and innovation; thirdly, the two sides will strengthen the cooperation in the major fields of renewable energy, water processing, bio-medicine, energy-saving and emission reduction as well as electronic information; fourthly, the two sides will intensify the HR cooperation like intelligence import, seminars, trainings, exchanges and two-way visits so as to improve the capacity building.