China, EU open negotiations on investment pact

~~BEIJING - China and the European Union have started the first round of negotiations to forge a China-EU bilateral investment treaty, a move first agreed to in February 2012. In October last year, EU member states gave the European Commission a negotiating mandate and, on November 21, the launch of negotiations was announced at the 16th EU-China Summit.

While EU investment in the US accounts for 30% of the outbound total, EU investment in China is between two and four per cent, and a new China-EU investment pact would seek to address this.