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Swedish Prime Minister sends 'green' message to China (2) |
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15:41, April 09, 2008 |
Is our way of living sustainable?
Q: China is Sweden's largest trading partner in Asia, how can we further tap the potential of economic relations between our two countries?
PM: Exactly, coming with me is also the representatives of the big industries, they are looking for further investments in China, a lot of them are already in place, and exactly as you say, it is a very important and a rapidly growing market for Sweden, so I hope they see more business alternatives, more interests in investment in China, I'm also very interested in that this green technology, the knowledge in the green sector, how we could make it more commercially interesting between our two countries.
Q: China has developed so quickly over the last 20 years, what's your comment about it? Does it develop too quickly?
PM: Absolutely. You have a fantastic economic growth figures. Now it is stated that you have some around 250 million inhabitants living in China on the western European standard level today, and that is dramatically a better position than it used to be. Then of course you still have many millions who are still poor and living in the countryside under the 2 dollar threshold. But for those who now live in big cities, there are a lot of discussions, 'Is our way of living sustainable? Are we consuming too much, are we doing the things that are environmentally friendly?' And probably China will have the same discussions. We need to do more, we need to have energy efficiency, we need to reshape partly how we are living and also put tax incentives or other steering mechanisms into the economy to take down partly the pollution side of the effect of the high growth figures with environment protection, the sustainable city and sustainable living, because China will be very much the engine for the world economy for many decades to come.
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