Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) shakes hands with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy during their talks in Brussels, Belgium, on March 31, 2014. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) 

President Xi Jinping yesterday won a promise from the European Union to consider a multi-billion-dollar free-trade deal with China.

Xi, the first Chinese leader to visit the EU institutions in Brussels since ties were established in 1975, had pressed senior EU officials to consider such a pact.

The 28-nation EU committed for the first time to opening talks on a free-trade accord if current negotiations on an investment agreement to improve business ties are successful.

"Concluding such a comprehensive EU-China Investment Agreement will convey both sides' joint commitment toward stronger cooperation as well as their willingness to envisage broader ambitions including, once the conditions are right, toward a deep and comprehensive FTA, as a longer-term perspective," the two sides said in their summit statement.

Talk of a free-trade deal, which would create a market of almost 2 billion people, seemed unthinkable just a year ago, when Brussels prepared to levy punitive import duties on billions of dollars of Chinese solar panels, setting off the biggest trade dispute between the two partners.

Relations have improved since the sides defused the row, setting a minimum price for exports of Chinese goods to the EU.

Both China and the EU have something to gain from increased trade. Europe's economy is barely growing after years of recession and the continent is suffering from near-record unemployment, while China's much faster growth is cooling.

British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed strong support for such a deal during a trip to Beijing in December, but many other EU members, including France, Italy and Spain are wary, saying China tries to dominate European markets with cheap, "subsidized" exports.

China's foreign ministry said that both sides "should start the feasibility study on a free-trade agreement, and jointly improve the quality and level of China-EU trade."

Europe is China's most important trading partner, while for the EU, China is second only to the United States. Trade between the two has doubled since 2003.

"Rocks cannot interrupt the course of a river in its tumultuous voyage to the ocean, I am convinced that no problem or difference can snarl the march of Sino-European friendship and cooperation," Xi wrote in Belgium's daily Le Soir.

Xi's visit "shows that China's foreign policy remains mindful of Europe and interested in pursuing greater integration with the Europeans," said Patrick Nijs, former Belgian ambassador to China.