"We hope our British colleagues can help urge the European Union to relax its restrictions on high-tech exports to China," international trade representative Gao Hucheng told a trade forum organised by the China-Britain Business Council.
Gao is among a 50-strong delegation accompanying Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang on a four-day visit to Britain that ends.
The 27-nation EU restricts high-tech exports to China and maintains a 21-year-old ban on selling weapons to China, imposed after a bloody crackdown on student protesters in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
China wants access to high-tech components to speed its move into higher-value-added manufacturing. Western business executives often voice concern about what they see as the inadequate protection of intellectual property rights in China.
China's reduction in export quotas for rare earth minerals, of which it is the biggest producer and which are used in the production of many high-tech products, has alarmed its trading partners.
Chinese companies have signed billions of dollars of business deals during the tour of Britain, Spain and Germany by Li, who is widely tipped to become China's next premier.
Britain, eager for closer business ties with China and other emerging market giants, announced 2.6 billion pounds ($4 billion) of business deals with China on Monday.
Gao said the Chinese economy was showing "more positive signs of consolidation and growth" and consumer spending was growing very rapidly. Internationally, uncertainties over growth were increasing, he said.
"This year the Chinese government will continue to implement a pro-active fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy," he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Gao said China would try to establish a fairer and more transparent environment for investors, adding that Beijing attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights.
He said China was committed to creating a more open and accommodating investment climate and would continue to open up financial services and services outsourcing, and encourage foreign direct investment in high-tech industries and high-end manufacturing, energy and environmental services. (Reuters)
