EU Agricultural Commissioner Dacion Ciolos gestures as he gives a speech at the China Agricultural University in Beijing March 24, 2011. [Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

BEIJING - Strong well-aged cheeses, fancy wines and spirits, and specialty meats are some of the things usually not found in a Chinese market, but that's likely to change if EU Agricultural Commissioner Dacion Ciolos has his way.

Spearheading a weeklong mission to China to promote international cultural agricultural goods exchange, Ciolos talks about the importance of international dialogue and cooperation.

Ciolos is pleased with what he saw and expects Chinese-EU food sector cooperation to grow.

"I think China is an increasing market, a strong increasing market not only in terms of quantity of products but also in terms of the increasing demand of quality products. The Chinese market is an opportunity for agricultural food sector from the EU," Ciolos said.

"This is why the EU is very strong partner with China because in agri-food sector China exports more to the EU than the EU to China."

Taking time out during this trip, Ciolos had meetings with Chinese officials.

"This was very useful for me because this is my first contact with the Chinese people and with Chinese realities. I had the opportunity to see on the spot of the resources of this increasing productivity in China to see that the people are very motivated and very well trained. They learn very quickly very fast in order to develop their own capacity of production," Ciolos said.

Though the talks and the trip was focused primarily on Chinese imports of EU agricultural goods, Ciolos sees that there is opportunity for Chinese goods entering the EU market, giving the example of vermicilli noodles. But he said Chinese goods hoping to enter the EU market to reach its 500 million consumers there are conditions that must be met.

"It requires the Chinese goods to be up to European standards and demand otherwise there will be no way it can enter the EU market," he said.