(Yicai Global) March 27 -- China and France have pledged to reach an ambitious comprehensive investment treaty between the world's second-largest economy and the European Union, its biggest trading bloc, at an early date, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Negotiations started in 2014 and so far 19 rounds of consultations and 12 meetings have been held. The treaty would include market access and investment protection.

China's investment in Europe has surged in recent years and stood at USD120 billion last April, making up 4 percent of its total overseas investment. The equivalent figures for European investment in China were USD80 billion and 2 percent, according to data from the Chinese government.

China and France also called for a forward push on economic globalization towards a more open, transparent, inclusive and non-discriminative system and the safeguarding of the rules-based, multilateral trading regime centered on the World Trade Organization, Xinhua said, citing a statement issued by the two governments yesterday.

Both countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and support a multilateral approach to global issues, and after the UK exits the EU, France will be the bloc's sole UNSC permanent member.

China and France are strong advocates of continuing reforms to the multilateral system, centered on the UN, to improve the efficiency of the system, Jean-Maurice Ripert, France's ambassador to China, said in an interview with Yicai Global.

"We hope to maintain the momentum of China-France cooperation, to jointly support and safeguard the multilateral system, resolutely opposing unilateralism and protectionism," Ripert said.

The two countries will continue to make joint efforts to build an open global economy, reject protectionism in all forms and guarantee a level playing field, the joint statement added.

Talks on the China-EU investment treaty cover pre-entry national treatment, negative list management, state-owned enterprise competition neutrality and opening of the high-end service industry. The two sides formally exchanged their list bids at the 20th China-EU leaders' meeting last July, signaling a new stage in negotiations, according to Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng.

They have agreed many important provisions in the text on investment liberalization and investment protection, and they will soon conduct substantive negotiations on the list bid for investment market access.