China should grant greater market access to foreign companies, including allowing them to list on the nation's domestic stock exchange, Britain's business secretary Peter Mandelson said Wednesday.
Mandelson made the request in talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, during which he also urged Beijing to agree to carbon emissions targets ahead of a key climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, the British embassy said.
The British secretary, who is the former European Union trade commissioner, is heading a large business delegation on a five-day visit to China aimed at boosting trade with the world's third-largest economy, the embassy said.
During talks with Wen, "both sides agreed on the need to keep markets open and resist any temptation to erect barriers to free trade… and were very clear that protectionism was not in the world's interest," it said.
Mandelson, a close ally of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, "stressed the importance of further work to allow companies to list and invest on each other's stock exchanges."
He also urged greater cooperation on global warming ahead of the Copenhagen talks and cited business opportunities expected to flow from the production of environmentally-friendly technologies and goods.
Mandelson "also urged China to agree a carbon emissions target," the embassy statement said, without elaborating.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
