The 10th UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) was held in London on Monday, with Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond hosting a series of events covering economic issues, financial services cooperation and trade and investment.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the UK in 2015, both countries agreed to jointly establish a China-UK global comprehensive strategic partnership in the 21st century, initiating a "golden era" of enduring, open and win-win China-UK ties, said Hu.

Early last year, leaders of both sides came to an agreement to accelerate the development of bilateral relations, by enhancing communication, expanding cooperation in trade, exploring new collaborative milestones in finance, and improving global governance, Hu added. 

Hammond said the UK highly values its greatly-improved relations with China. Since the first EFD, both countries have achieved real success in practical cooperation at various aspects. The UK has its unique advantages and is willing to enhance cooperation with China in sectors including but not limited to trade, investment, finance and energy.

"Through these dialogues we have achieved real successes, trebling the investment between our two nations, boosting our economies and increasing prosperity for all of our citizens", said Hammond.

Upgrading cooperation in multiple sectors, China and the UK will continue to firmly safeguard multilateralism and the rules-based multilateral trading system.

According to the UK government, since the first EFD was held in 2008, trade in goods and services between the UK and China has more than doubled from 32 billion pounds to a record 69 billion pounds (86.4 billion U.S. dollars), with investment between the two countries having almost trebled. In the last six years alone, there have been over 700 new investments, creating nearly 16,000 new jobs and safeguarding around 13,000 more.

After the dialogue, Hu met with Prime Minister Theresa May, and attended the launch ceremony of the Shanghai-London Stock Connect with Hammond.