BEIJING, March 27 -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday met with Markus Soeder, minister-president of Bavaria, Germany, calling for strengthened economic and trade cooperation with Bavaria.

Noting that local cooperation is a source of vitality and an important foundation of China-Germany relations, Li said China attaches importance to Bavaria's unique role in bilateral relations and is willing to deepen opening-up and cooperation with the region.

Li expressed the hope that Bavaria will continue to play an active role in promoting overall cooperation between China and Germany, particularly when it comes to achieving win-win results, strengthening innovation cooperation, and deepening cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Li said that China is ready to strengthen economic and trade cooperation with Bavaria further, and to view that cooperation as the ballast of relations. China will strengthen cooperation in the fields of electric vehicles, clean energy, biopharmaceuticals and artificial intelligence, deepen exchanges in the fields of culture, education, sports and youth, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation between the two sides to bring it to a new level, he added.

China will continue to expand market access, ensure foreign-funded enterprises are treated the same as domestic companies, and build a market-oriented, legal and first-class business environment, Li said. It will work on issues such as cross-border data flows and provide more support and convenience for German enterprises to invest in China, he said, noting that China hopes Bavaria will also provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises.

Soeder said that Bavaria has established close, cooperative relations with China and opposes a decoupling. It is willing to promote cooperation with China continuously in fields such as agriculture, sci-tech and people-to-people and cultural exchanges, expand the common interests of both sides, and achieve mutual benefits.