China has been keen on implementing trade and investment facilitation so as to reduce cost in foreign trade and optimize investment environment, said a senior commerce official Monday in Macao.

Speaking at the trade and investment debate session at the ongoing Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation, Chen Jian, assistant to the minister of commerce, said that China is willing to contribute to the world's common prosperity by engaging itself in the process of economic globalization and the free flow of trade and investment.

He told officials, non-governmental organizations and business people from seven Portuguese-speaking countries attending the forum that China has been seriously fulfilling its World Trade Organization commitment to open up the domestic market and gradually lower the average tariff.

"China has been actively involved in a broader and higher levelof multilateral trade, investment and diversified modes of international economic and technological cooperation," he said.

Chen pointed out that the present trade volume between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, which stood at some 6.1 billionUS dollars in 2002, is not equal to the real capacity of the two sides.

China is willing to expand the bilateral trade and investment through a concerted effort to smooth out the barriers in trade andthe flow of logistics, personnel and technology with the seven Portuguese-speaking countries of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and East Timor, he said.

Such inter-governmental agreement would lead to the creation of a better legal environment for trade and investment and the designation of projects of mutual benefits, Chen added.

(Information by Network Center of MOFCOM)

(News source: English Website of Ministry of Commerce)

(All information published in this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only. )