THE European Union (EU) and China have achieved concrete results, visiting EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in Beijing on Friday after his talks with Premier Wen Jiabao.

"The main topics are climate change and sustainable development, which are global challenges and require the EU and China to cooperate closely to tackle," said Barroso, former Portuguese prime minister.

During the talks, the EU and China probed deeply into climate change and the two sides agreed to keep close contact on the issue to ensure the negotiations in Copenhagen next year are fruitful.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2009, in an effort to pave the way to reach an agreement on a new global cooperation pact on fighting climate change.

The EU welcomed China's indication of incorporating the country's emission reduction target into the pact, Barroso said.

The first Sino-EU high-level economic and trade dialogue, which opened in Beijing on Friday, also achieved concrete results.

Trade between China and the EU was making rapid progress and China had agreed to seek a more balanced trade relationship, he said without elaborating.

Addressing the Carrefour issue, Barroso said almost all the domestic employees of the French supermarket chain were Chinese and almost 95 percent of its local offerings were Chinese products. Therefore, this made it unreasonable to call for a boycott of the retailer.

In response to protests in Paris and elsewhere in Europe against the Olympic torch relay, Chinese protesters took to the streets of several cities last weekend calling for a boycott of Carrefour.

Barroso's delegation included nine commissioners in charge of the environment, science and research, external relations, trade, energy, tax and customs union, development and humanitarian aid, employment and social affairs and consumer protection.

They arrived in Beijing on Thursday afternoon to start a three-day tour. During the visit, Barroso met with President Hu Jintao and held talks with Premier Wen Jiabao. He also attended a pictorial exhibition and a seminar on climate change.

(Xinhua)