German Chancellor Angela Merkel will pay an official visit to China from May 21 to 23 at the invitation of her Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, announced Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao on Tuesday.

This will be the German chancellor's first visit to China since she came to power in November 2005.

Liu said that the two sides will exchange views on further developing China-Germany relations and some major international and regional issues of common concern.

Chinese President Hu Jintao will meet with Merkel. She will also hold talks with Premier Wen and deliver a joint press briefing after the talks. The two government leaders will also attend the fourth meeting of the China-Germany High-Tech Dialogue Forum, according to Liu.

The two sides will sign some cooperation agreements and contracts on cooperation projects during her China visit.

Besides Beijing, Merkel will also visit Shanghai.

China and Germany have carried out fruitful cooperation in various fields, including politics, economy and trade, culture, sports, technology and environmental protection, Liu said, noting Germany is a major cooperation partner of China in all areas.

The bilateral trade volume in 2005 reached 63.2 billion US dollars, accounting for nearly one-third of the trade volume between China and the European Union. Germany is China's biggest EU trading partner.

As for bilateral cooperation in developing magnetically levitated trains, Liu said that it is a new area of China-Germany technological cooperation and the two sides have made breakthroughs in the Shanghai magnetically levitated train project. China is willing to continue cooperation in this field with Germany, he said.

Source: Xinhua