The 16th China-EU Summit, which took place in Beijing this week, yielded fruitful results and issued the China-EU 2020 Strategic Agenda for Co-operation.

It has announced the launch of negotiations on a China-EU investment agreement and set the goal of bringing China-EU trade to $1 trillion by 2020.

This is no low-hanging fruit and we need to jump to reach it, but I am confident we can attain that goal. The agenda will definitely provide more opportunities for economic and trade collaboration between China and Europe, including the UK.

In a couple of days, I will pay my second visit of the year to Europe and will meet prime ministers of 16 central and eastern European countries in Bucharest, where we will explore ways to boost co-operation.

There is great potential for expanding co-operation between China and these countries and I look forward to working together with my colleagues from these nations to create a new impetus for developing our mutual relations.

The world economic recovery remains bumpy and fragile. To meet this common challenge, we need to continue to work together and help each other; at the same time, we also need to keep our own houses in order.

I am pleased to see that many European countries are leaving recession behind them and the EU economy is being put on a more stable footing; China also has a good report card for its economy.

At the beginning of this year, the tough, complex situation, both domestically and internationally, placed mounting downward pressure on the Chinese economy. Some were predicting, as reported overseas, a hard landing for the Chinese economy and some even claimed it would go bust.

We faced up to that pressure and stuck to the policy of not allowing either the deficit to grow or monetary expansion or contraction. Instead, we adopted a holistic approach based on innovative macro-economic management.

Despite a significant slowing down in the growth of government revenue and a "credit crunch" in the middle of this year when the overnight inter-bank rate surged to abnormal levels, we stayed focused and did not inject liquidity into the economy, despite what many expected.

We have adopted a host of measures to address both current and long-term needs. For example, we have steadily released the dividends of reform, provided a level playing field for businesses – private capital in particular – and tapped the potential of the market.

We generated the internal driving force of economic growth, improved supply and boosted domestic demand through structural adjustment.

As the world watched closely, the third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee last week adopted a series of decisions aimed at comprehensively deepening reform in China.

These decisions will not only speed up China's social and economic development, but also help address resources and environmental constraints, as well as uneven development between urban and rural areas and among different regions, thus bringing greater prosperity to the Chinese people and creating new opportunities for our relations with the outside world.

Chief among these are the growing ties between China and Europe.

China's modernisation programme will create historic opportunities for mutually beneficial co-operation between the 2bn people of China and Europe, including those in the UK.

Let us seize this opportunity and deliver the benefits which co-operation can bring to all our peoples.