On February 1, 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao attended the welcome evening banquet hosted by China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) in London and delivered a speech. Premier Wen first introduced China's current economic and financial situation and the policies and measures adopted by China to cope with the international financial crisis. He stressed that China is confident to maintain stable and relatively fast economic development and the international community needs to strengthen confidence, unity and cooperation to overcome the current hardships.

Wen Jiabao proposed that the most important thing at present is to do the following things well. First, the leaders should be decisive and responsible in their decision-making and should not miss the right time to act. Second, we must resolutely oppose protectionism in trade and investment. The open, robust, uninterrupted trade and investment is crucial to mitigating the impact of economic crisis. Third, it is necessary to strengthen the reform on international financial institutions, in particular, to increase the share, representation and voice of developing countries. The capital flows of financial institutions should be subject to regulation. Fourth, it is necessary to strengthen regulation over major international financial institutions. The blood of morality should flow within the body of economists and financiers.

Wen ended his speech with a quotation from the British poet Shelley's poem, "if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" If leaders, entrepreneurs, and financiers act for the sake of the people, for the sake of social fairness and justice, and for the sake of progress and harmony of the world, the future of mankind will be bright.

Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform and CBBC Chairman Sir David Brewer delivered a speech respectively, commending China's remarkable development achievements and the swift and decisive actions taken by the Chinese government to address the financial crisis. They said that the government and the business community of UK are optimistic about the prospects of China's development and are willing to work with China to further strengthen economic and trade exchanges and cooperation. The measures taken by China to expand domestic demands and promote economic growth will provide UK with more business opportunities. UK opposes trade protectionism, and welcomes Chinese companies to invest in UK. They believed that China's economy will remain open. They hoped that, UK and China, by working together to address the financial crisis, can upgrade the relations between the two countries to a new level in the new year and contribute to the recovery of world economy.

In the afternoon, Wen went to Huawei Technologies UK Co. Ltd., visiting the staff and having discussions with the representatives of some Chinese-funded enterprises in UK.