AHEAD OF BEIJING OLYMPICS, CHINA CONSIDERED KEY ALLY

摘要

Protests and unrest have followed the Olympic torch relay around the globe, but many see the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to increase cooperation with the manufacturing giant. With a huge consumer market and continued dominance in outsourced production, China offers a lucrative partner for developed economies with high labor costs and saturated domestic markets. In return, Chinese investment in U.S. and U.K. is largely coveted. "Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Premier Wen Jiabao have set a challenging bilateral target for increases in trade in goods and services to reach $60 billion by 2010," asserted the Rt. Hon. John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform, during his address at the Sustainability Business Conference for China and the U.K. Dialogue on financial and economic issues between the two countries has been raised to Chancellor and Vice Premier level, he added.