Finland and China on Thursday signed high-tech contracts worth $1 billion and planned new top-level trade talks aimed at further deals worth more than $2 billion, said Keqiang Li, Vice Premier of China.

We will be sending a large economic and trade delegation numbering several hundred to Finland in a few weeks. As it stands now we are looking at new contracts worth more than $2 billion of Chinese purchases from Finland, Li said at a joint news conference after the signing ceremony and talks with Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, at the start of a two-day official visit.

Li and Vanhanen joined a signing ceremony of several government and business agreements between the two sides, under which Li said China would purchase Finland's advanced environment-friendly technologies.

Finnish and Chinese delegates also signed wireless technology contracts, including between the world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. and Chinese telecommunications companies.

According to the contacts, Shenzhen Huawei Tech Co., Ltd signed an cooperation agreement with Finland's telecom giant TeliaSonera, allowing Huawei to build the first commercial network based on Software Radio Technology for Teliasonera in North Finland.

Li on Friday paid his visit to the headquarters of Nokia and Kone, a Finnish elevator and escalator maker with operations in 50 countries.

Finland, which is highly dependent on exports, welcomed China's input, Vanhanen said.

The two governments also planned to hold talks in August on reducing double-taxing to facilitate bilateral trade and investment activities, said Li.

Vanhanen said that Finland, battered by the ongoing financial crisis, was looking forward to seeing the large group of Chinese entrepreneurs in Finland.

According to the official statics, Finnish-Chinese trade amounted to some $10 billion last year, sevenfold of what it was ten years ago.

China Huawei