Swedish Foreign Trade Minister Sten Tolgfors said here Wednesday Sweden would like to work with China to push forward the WTO's Doha round of market-opening talks.

The Doha round of talks is entering a crucial stage at present, Tolgfors told reporters at a press briefing in Beijing, saying he believes this round of talks has great possibilities to continue.

As the essential basis of Sweden's economy, foreign trade accounts for 90 percent of its GDP, said Tolgfors, who is here from June 14 to 20 at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Bo Xilai.

He called for the two sides to make joint efforts for fair trade conditions through pushing forward the long-running negotiations, launched in 2001 in the Qatari capital.

The Doha Round of trade talks, also called Doha Development Agreement (DDA), aimed at boosting the global economy and helping poor countries through fairer trade conditions. The talks stalled last July mainly because of sharp differences over agriculture subsidies and tariffs.

Representatives of the United States, the European Union, India and Brazil started a meeting Tuesday in Germany with the goal of breaking the deadlock in the Doha round of talks.

During Tolgfors' first-ever China visit since taking office last year, he met with Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai, exchanging views on future cooperation on environmental protection, innovation and social responsibilities of enterprises.

The two sides also signed two agreements on environmental policy and labor market cooperation.

China has been the biggest trade partner of Sweden in Asia for four consecutive years since 2002. The trade volume reached 6.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2006, up 18 percent from the previous year.

However, the two-way trade volume only accounts for 2 percent of the total trade volume of Sweden, according to Tolgfors, and there is "still big room for development."

Tolgors' seven-day tour also took him to China's economic hub of Shanghai in the east and Guangzhou in the south.

Source: Xinhua