President Francois Hollande of France will pay a state visit to China on April 25 and 26, at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. The presidential trip comes on the heels of last week's visit by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Iceland's Prime Minister Johanna Siguroardottir paid an official visit to China from April 13 to 18. After six years of negotiations, Iceland on Monday became the first European country to sign a free trade agreement with China.

China's Ambassador to Denmark Li Ruiyu welcomed a delegation from Fudan University this week for the opening of the Fudan-European Centre for China Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Earlier this month in Shanghai, Danish Ambassador to China Friis Arne Petersen and Consul General Karsten Ankjaer Jensen attended a ceremony when Fudan University signed an agreement with the University of Copenhagen to open the center.

British Ambassador Sebastian Wood recently opened a three-day exhibition at Jiading Race Track as the Chinese Grand Prix celebrated its 10th anniversary. Designed to demonstrate Britain's strengths in the luxury sector, the exhibition featured retail goods and the latest cars designed by McLaren, Mono, Morgan and Bentley. Visitors to the exhibition also saw performances by the UK street dance group Flawless, finalists in the 2009 Britain's Got Talent.

The activities ended a week-long series of events as part of the "Great" Britain campaign to promote education, tourism, trade and investment overseas. During the week, the British Consul General in Shanghai, Brian Davidson, traveled to Hangzhou, Hefei and Nanjing - provincial capitals in the fast-growing East China region - to talk to more than 500 business leaders and officials about Britain's visa policies, education, tourism and business opportunities.

A recent workshop focusing on strengthening the elderly care workforce in China was co-hosted by the UK and China in Beijing.

An agency of the State Council of China started the project last June with the support of the British Embassy's Prosperity Fund. The research team concluded that China's elderly care system has developed rapidly in recent years, but that there has been too much focus on residential care. Nearly 80 percent of institutional beds are occupied by healthy older people who live there because they cannot access the right services and recreational opportunities at home.

The French embassy announced that Francois Boucher, Asia correspondent for various magazines and who has lived in China since 1994, has published his eighth novel, From My Jungle Affectionately. Boucher's earlier novels were published under the pseudonym Fan Tong, the nickname given by his first Chinese teacher. Events in his novels occur in China and put forward Sino-French relations, which serve as background to the plots.

Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb led a Team Finland trip, aiming to promote exports and internationalization of Finnish companies, to China over three days from April 10. During the trip, the delegation visited Shanghai, Jiangsu province and Chengdu. Almost 200 Finnish companies operate in the and around Shanghai and about 40 in Jiangsu province.

Send embassy news to michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/19/2013 page31)