January 9, Vice Premier Li Keqiang ended a 4-day visit to Germany, to Britain for an official visit. It is reported that the trip to Germany signed a 8.7 billion worth of contracts and agreements, involving finance, shipbuilding, energy, automotive, textile machinery and other fields. But the German side asked the Chinese to relax the export of rare earth turned down a request by Li Keqiang.
At present, China and Germany are each other's largest trading partner in their respective regions, in 2010, bilateral trade volume between China and Germany more than 1,400 billion dollars. Further deepen economic and trade cooperation between China and Germany, is Li's trip an important issue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany is willing to China in political, economic, diplomatic, technological, environmental, and social dialogue in all areas, and is willing to promote EU to recognize China's full market economy status to play an active role.

However, in rare earth export issue, the German voice of discord emerged. According to German media reports, German Economy Minister Bruderle local time on January 6 meeting with Li Keqiang, "asked the Chinese side not to increase the difficulties of Western access to rare earth", but Li refuted Bruderle export policy for concerns about China Rare Earth .