Zhengzhou has opened air passenger routes and 32 cargo airlines to seven cities in the European Union such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Milan.

Henan is a dynamic and innovative part of China, with more than 12,000 new businesses registered every day, Zhao says. The province has seen great developments in emerging industries such as electronic information, equipment manufacturing, bioenergy and new energy cars.

Last year, the province's smartphone output exceeded 200 million units, about one seventh of the world's production. The province produced some 21,000 new energy cars, the largest number in China.

Henan's exports to Europe mainly consist of cellphones, tires, steel, bags and suitcases, garments, chinaware and auto parts, and its imports from Europe are mostly iron and copper ore, metalworking machine tools, integrated circuits and microelectronic components, and cosmetics.

More than 300 EU companies are investing in Henan, while companies in the province have increased their investment in the EU to $700 million, says Jiao Jinmiao, director of the Henan Provincial Commerce Department.

Du Junfu, president of Shuanghui Group, China's largest pork producer, says it does business in more than 40 countries, and earned a revenue of $21.2 billion last year. In Europe, the company has eight pork processing factories in Poland and one in Romania, and combined annual sales of about $1.4 billion.

"In the past 20 years, we have been involved in Europe's agricultural development and cooperation. Europe has advanced agricultural technology, rich natural resources and good products and equipment, but they need external markets, while China has the largest market but lacks resources and needs importation of products. These differences in the two markets complement each other," Du says.

The EU leaders expressed great interest in the goods that had just arrived in Zhengzhou from the EU, including wine and milk, as well as the different types of buses exported to Europe by the Yutong Group, a conglomerate based in Zhengzhou.

Catherine West, foreign secretary in the British Labour Party's shadow cabinet, says the United Kingdom is interested in working with China on green technology and increasing exports to China.

"I think (British) products that will attract the Chinese market are high-tech products, and a lot of creative industries," she says.

Manfred Grund, chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group of Germany, says he is especially interested in Zhengzhou's new technology in producing electric cars. The group is the political alliance of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and Christian Social Union in Bavaria.

Grund says Germany and all of Europe is talking about how to improve transportation and increase green technology in the auto industry, and there is potential in this sector for collaboration between China and Europe.

chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn