China says EU debt crisis 'important' to Beijing

China said Friday the ability of eurozone companies to overcome their debt problems was "extremely important" to Beijing, while calling on EU nations to offer more work permits to Chinese investors. The comments from senior Chinese officials came ahead of a trip next week to Europe by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and as the eurozone debt crisis has returned to the spotlight, with Greece on the edge of defaulting on its loans. "The capacity of certain European nations to overcome their difficulties and come out of the crisis is extremely important for us," Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying said ahead of Wen's June 24-28 trip to Hungary, Britain and Germany. Fu, who was speaking at a briefing about Wen's European tour, said Beijing had supported European countries by "increasing its eurobond holdings" and by "promoting economic and commercial cooperation". China has repeatedly expressed its confidence in the eurozone economies, and has invested an increasing portion of its world-leading foreign exchange reserves in euro-denominated assets. Since December, China has pledged to buy government bonds from struggling Spain, Greece and Portugal. Greece has warned it will be unable to pay next month's bills without a 12-billion-euro ($17 billion) loan instalment from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, part of a broader 110-billion-euro bailout package agreed last year. Fu said Chinese companies were enthusiastic about investing in Europe, but lamented that "certain European politicians are prone to politically interpret the economic activities of Chinese companies in Europe". "Chinese investment is no different than that of other nations," she said. A senior commerce ministry official highlighted the fact that Chinese investors were having difficulty obtaining visas and work permits from European countries. "Currently one of the main problems for our companies that want to invest in Europe are the visas and work permits," Wang Zhiming, the ministry's vice director of European affairs, told reporters. Such problems are an "obstacle" to trade and tend to dissuade Chinese companies from investing in Europe, Wang said. "China has constantly raised this issue with European authorities" but "unfortunately up until now, this has not been fundamentally resolved," he said. "This is the most serious and most glaring problem that Chinese companies raise with us."