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Hu Jintao signs HK$23b in deals on Denmark trip

Clear the Air says:   too bad Edward Yau’s ‘Greentech’  jaunt to Europe,  funded by the public purse for him and indirectly through Universities for his accompanying ilk, did not manage to sign any deals

whilst taking in the delights of Europe and its clean air.  Of course he did visit a Scottish distillery. We wonder of what benefit  such a trip could be to Hong Kong’s Environment above the gratification

of the outgoing Minister who is charged with protecting it and who has the worst performing of all failed portfolios, rapidly followed by the Education Prevarication minister, Suen to be no more.

Hu Jintao signs HK$23b in deals on Denmark trip

Denmark’s foreign minister says he will discuss Syria, Tibet and human rights with his Chinese counterpart
Agencies in Copenhagen
Jun 16, 2012

President Hu Jintao , who is on a three-day state visit to Denmark, penned a string of business deals worth a total of 18 billion krone (HK$23.6 billion) with some of the Nordic country’s largest companies.

The deals were signed yesterday and include agreements with Danish container and shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk, brewer Carlsberg, wind turbine maker Vestas and dairy co-operative Arla.

Hu arrived on Thursday and has toured Copenhagen’s harbour aboard the royal yacht, cruising by green technology projects as well as the Little Mermaid statue which was briefly lent out to China for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

Hu’s visit is the first official state visit to Denmark by a Chinese leader since the countries established ties 62 years ago. He is accompanied by a large delegation of Chinese officials and business leaders.

APM Terminals, the ports arm of A.P. Moller-Maersk, will take a 25 per cent stake in a project to expand Ningbo Port with total investments of 4.29 billionyuan (HK$5.26 billion), the companies said.

Ningbo , in the northeastern province of Zhejiang , is the sixth-largest container port in the world and the third-biggest in China, with throughput of 14.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (teu) last year and strong growth in recent years, APM Terminals said.

China is Denmark’s eighth-largest export market, and by the end of March this year 331 Danish companies were doing business there.

Last year, Danish exports to China totalled 15 billion krone and its imports from China amounted to 36 billion krone.

Thomas Bostrup, of the Confederation of Danish Industries, said the major agreements sealed between Danish and Chinese firms during Hu’s visit “will give a lot more orders because it will be noticed in China that their president is here and will give some exposure to the competencies and technologies that we have in Denmark”.

Hu will meet Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt today before taking off for the summit of the Group of 20 major developed and developing nations in Mexico.

Meanwhile, Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal said he would discuss Syria, Tibet and human rights when he meets Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Copenhagen.

“I will be raising issues that we do not necessarily agree on such as human rights and Tibet,” Sovndal said on the Baltic island of Bornholm. “We are worried about the situation for the minority in Tibet, we are worried about human rights,” he said.

Still, he said he would primarily be raising the issue of the ongoing hostilities in Syria.

“I will be taking time to see whether China is ready to play a more constructive role in connection with the macabre situation we see in Syria, with massacres of innocent people who are just protesting against a regime that lost its legitimacy a long time ago,” Sovndal said.

China froze relations with Denmark in 2009, after two successive prime ministers welcomed Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, at the official government residence.

Those relations were mended in late 2010 when the Danish parliament made it clear that Copenhagen had a one-China policy and did not back independence for the Himalayan territory.

Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters

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