Financial officials of China and the European Union held a dialogue in Beijing on Monday to exchange views on the macroeconomic situations in China and EU, fiscal, monetary and foreign exchange policies.

Also discussed were financial reforms, regulatory policies in the two economies and issues concerning accounting standards.
   
Jin Renqing, China's Minister of Finance, and Charlie McCreevy, commissioner in charge of the Internal Market and Services of the EU, were among those officials who attended the one-day meeting, known as the second round of Sino-EU Financial Dialogue.
   
Zhu Guangyao, director general of the International Department of the Ministry of Finance, said the dialogue was very important because the EU and China are two economies of global significance. The EU is China's biggest trading partner while China is now the EU's second biggest trading partner.
   
The aim of the dialogue was to deepen mutual understanding in both the macroeconomic and financial sectors and expand cooperation to add new vitality to the Sino-EU strategic partnership, Zhu said.
   
China and the EU launched their financial dialogue mechanism on February 22, 2005, creating a new channel of regular policy dialogues in the macroeconomic and financial sectors as major supplements to similar dialogue mechanisms that China has set up with individual major EU member nations, according to a statement from the ministry.

(Xinhua News Agency May 16, 2006)