A delegation of over 200 Chinese companies kicked off a European shopping spree by negotiating contracts worth billions of euros (dollars) with German firms in Berlin, a trade body said Wednesday. The group, accompanied by Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, is set to splurge around 11 billion euros (14 billion dollars) on products and technology during its trip to Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Britain.
Germany hopes to snap up "a good proportion" of that sum, Juergen Heraeus, spokesman on Chinese affairs for the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business told AFP. An unconfirmed report in business daily Handelsblatt said the Chinese firms were prepared to splash out more than six billion euros during the German leg of their tour. The European Union is China's largest trading partner, its most important source for technology imports and its largest export destination.