CRI听力:Euro Zone Leaders Beginning Attempts to Persuade China to Help

One element of the deal reached by the Euro zone leaders, is to raise the region's bailout fund, or European Financial Stability Facility, to about one trillion euros.

The chief of Europe's bailout fund Klaus Regling is now visiting Beijing to discuss possible terms for raising money from China.

His visit comes just a day after euro zone leaders struck a last-minute deal in Brussels to contain the region's debt crisis.

"Now we may have new instruments, which we are designing now. And we will see who participates in those new instruments. I cannot say today, and certainly far too early to say what kind of amounts might be in visits. I cannot answer that question today."

After meeting Chinese leaders, Klaus Regling said there were no formal negotiations and would be no deal now.

China has not announced publicly it would invest in the fund, although it has repeatedly expressed confidence that Europe can overcome its two-year-old debt crisis.

However, Regling is very optimistic and says China has been a regular buyer of EFSF bonds in the past.

"That's also my experience talking to the Chinese authorities that they are interested in finding attractive, solid, safe investment opportunities. And I am happy that EFSF bonds have been considered to be in that category in the past, and therefore I am optimistic that we will have also a longer-term relationship because we will continue to provide safe, attractive investment opportunities."

China has a major interest in Europe because the eurozone is China's biggest export market.

China also owns an estimated $800 billion US dollars worth of euro assets in its $3.2 trillion US dollars foreign exchange reserves.

Fu Ying, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister says she expect China and EU can work through the crisis together.

"We do not think that Europe will just collapse. We hope that by fighting this crisis the mutual understanding and mutual trust between China and Europe can be enhanced, and the cooperation between us can be deepened. We hope that this crisis can be an opportunity for all of us to make progress."

Chen Fengying is a director with China Institute of Contemporary international Relations.

She believes China can participate in the process of recovering the economy of Europe in many ways, beside purchasing bonds.

"We can help through several platforms, like the G20, and the IMF, and through other forms of cooperation as well, which is important to the future of the Sino-EU relations."

Earlier, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao says China still needs to carry out serious studies before any decisions on investment.

The framework for the new EFSF bailout fund is to be put in place in November.

For CRI, I'm Shen Chengcheng.