CHINA: French President Jaques Chirac arrives in Beijing for the last major foreign trip of his presidency.

: French President Jacques Chirac arrived in Beijing on Wednesday (October 25), hoping to wrap up a decade of steadily warming ties with a breakthrough on several elusive deals for French firms. After meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, he will visit the inland industrial city of Wuhan, a target for French investment, during a four-day state visit. Chirac is expected to stress in his talks with China's President Hu Jintao the importance of international unity on United Nations moves to punish Pyongyang for conducting a nuclear test as well as efforts to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. Chirac, 73, has not yet said if he will run for a third term next April but his visit to China is widely seen as a swansong designed to brush up his legacy abroad as he strives to inject fresh vigour into the final stretch of his mandate at home. French President hailed China as a "natural trade partner" and dismissed European fears of its economic might when he returned two years ago from his last visit, clutching 4 billion euros of air, rail and energy deals. But France still lags behind Germany with a Chinese market share of 1.4 percent against 4.0 percent for Europe's largest economy, according to official French figures. Chirac's entourage will nonetheless include some 30 business chiefs including the heads of planemaker Airbus, which hopes to win orders on the trip, and nuclear reactor maker Areva, which is battling U.S. rival Westinghouse for an $8 billion order for new-generation plants. The visit is also seen as a last-ditch opportunity for France's Societe Generale to snatch a $3 billion banking deal from U.S. rival Citigroup, whose consortium is reported to be ahead in negotiations to buy debt-ridden Guangdong Bank. French-based Airbus is waiting for final approval for plans to build its first offshore assembly plant in the eastern city Tianjin, with the first A320-family single-aisle jets expected to roll off its production lines from 2008. Production delays have raised doubts over whether A380 superjumbos ordered by China will be delivered in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics -- an embarrassing setback compounded by Chirac's failure to win the 2012 Olympics for Paris. The European Union will urge China this week to open its economy further to foreign investment and address what it sees as problems caused by Beijing's emergence as a trade superpower. For its part, Beijing is irked by EU measures backed by France to impose anti-dumping duties on what Brussels says are underpriced Chinese exports, and firmly rejects efforts to link trade negotiations with human rights. China has not ruled out taking the EU to court in its first ever challenge at the World Trade Organisation over duties on leather sh imports from China, which it says are unjustified. China is also at odds with Europe over an arms trade embargo imposed after hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were killed in and near Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, though France is part of an EU minority now backing an end to the ban.

ITN Source | October 25, 2006

Tags:. .delays. .stress. .minority. .doubts. .conducting