,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is due to sign several bilateral treaties at a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the second day of his three-day visit to Beijing.
Before the meeting and the official signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Olmert toured China's famous Great Wall just outside the Chinese capital.
Olmert's visit — his second in less than three years but the first since taking office a year ago — has a dual focus of boosting trade ties while also looking at sensitive Middle East issues, particularly Iran's nuclear programme.
A senior government official told AFP that the two countries would sign three agreements Wednesday on cultural ties, Israeli export of citrus fruit and the sale of water purification technology to China.
But Olmert was also expected to raise with Wen the thorny question of Iran's nuclear programme, which Israel, the United States and other Western nations believe is aimed at developing an atomic weapon.
The Jewish state, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, considers the Islamic republic its arch foe following repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.
According to officials, Olmert does not expect to encounter much enthusiasm in Beijing for Israel's call to slap heavy sanctions on Iran, one of China's major suppliers of the oil and gas needed to feed its fast-growing economy.
“But we must prepare for the next round of sanctions against Iran in the coming months,” one Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
China supported a UN Security Council resolution on December 23 slapping light sanctions on Iran, although it has signalled its reluctance to take any tougher action.
Nevertheless, Israel is confident that China does not want to see Iran become a nuclear power.
“China, too, has no interest in seeing a nuclear Iran,” the official said.
Olmert will meet President Hu Jintao on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Olmert visited a joint Israeli-Chinese experimental dairy farm on the outskirts of Beijing and later toured the site of the Olympic village.
A picture of Olmert dressed in a white jacket while attempting to milk a cow on the dairy farm appeared in local media.
