China will take further action to boost intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and improve its investment environment to shore up cooperation with the European Union (EU), a senior official said.

The remarks were made by Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Xu Xianping prior to Vice Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Spain, Germany and Britain starting Tuesday.

Stressing that mutual understanding and reciprocal industrial and investment cooperation are crucial for China-EU ties, Xu said China seeks to step up cooperation by creating more favorable conditions to reinvigorate their economies as well as upgrade and transform their industries.

China is the world's largest developing country while the EU is the largest bloc of developed countries, Xu noted, saying that deepening their mutual understanding and high-level, multi-faceted cooperation in industrial investment could serve as an important springboard for consolidating and developing the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership.

The official urged the two sides to respect each other's core interests, fully tap their cooperation potential and expand their areas of common interest as much as possible.

He also urged the EU to ease restrictions on high-tech exports to China and recognize China's full market economy status at an earlier date.

In a bid to achieve mutually beneficial cooperation and secure a win-win result, China and the EU need to focus on the following aspects, Xu said.

Firstly, they should continue to consolidate existing cooperation, fully tapping the potential for technical cooperation in such fields as energy-efficient and eco-friendly vehicles, key components, diesel vehicles and heavy commercial vehicles.

Meanwhile, China and the EU need to promote the development of railway transportation equipment, aviation equipment and high-efficiency, low-emission new energy automobiles, strengthen research and cooperation in the security of electric cars, key components and quality evaluation methods, and discuss the construction of the recharging facility network.

Xu said the two sides should encourage their enterprises to boost cooperation in the production of A350 planes and Airbus sub-contract manufacture, and seek ways to deepen cooperation in the railway sector.

He also called for strengthened bilateral cooperation in the information sector including TD-SCDMA and its technical evolution, as well as the evolution and transformation of next-generation Internet.

Secondly, efforts need to be made by both sides to develop clean energy, reinforcing the development and utilization of renewable energy and new energy, and promoting the exploration of non-conventional resources such as coal-bed gas.

Moreover, the two sides should also explore the market of solar photovoltaic and solar thermal power generation and the utilization of bio-mass energy, develop an intellectual grid, and cooperate in research on renewable energy power generation technology.

Thirdly, they need to step up efforts in promoting energy conservation and environmental protection.

Xu stressed China and the EU should focus their efforts on intensifying bilateral cooperation in clean coal technology, relaxing to the maximum extent possible the restrictions on the transfer of energy-saving and emission-reduction technology, and the joint development of high-efficiency, energy-saving technology, equipment and products.

Resource recycling, industrialization of key technology, cooperation in technology of advanced water and wastewater treatment and recycling as well as waste-to-resource technology should also be made priorities.

Finally, they need to promote bio-technology by vigorously carrying out a cooperative development of bio-medicine for critical illness prevention and control, gene medicine, new vaccines and diagnostic reagents, and accelerating the collaborative research and development as well as industrialization of biomedical engineering products, Xu said.

While bolstering their cooperation in green agriculture and green food, China and the EU should also work together to develop the bio-breeding industry and marine biotechnology and related products, promoting the development and application of bio-manufacture technology.

Two-way investment between China and the EU has witnessed an enormous increase over the past years, and by the end of 2009, the EU's actual investment in China reached 68 billion U.S. dollars, he said.

Meanwhile, China's foreign direct investment (FDI) in the EU has covered all its 27 member states, with FDI stock reaching about 6.28 billion dollars by the end of 2009, Xu said.