Chinese president sees transformation of German mining areas – AFP

From AFP, via Yahoo! News:

Chinese President Hu Jintao rounded off his trip to Germany by visiting the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia where he was to see how former coal-mining regions have been transformed.

Hu flew to the western region from Berlin, where he held talks on Friday with chancellor-to-be Angela Merkel and the outgoing chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The president was to visit a distribution centre of the Swedish furniture store Ikea, an example of the service industry which has replaced mining in some areas of the Ruhr, still Europe’s largest industrial area.