Francois Hollande in southwestern megacity of Chongqing

China may be the second biggest economy after United States, but it has turned a more courted nation by Western leaders, looking for ways to pump up their economy.

Just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping returned from a state visit to Britain, where he promised an investment of close to 50 billion pounds, Beijing has seen several Western leaders coming on visits.

The latest is French President Francois Hollande who began a visit today partly for business, partly also to get  Chinese support to  reach an effective deal at the forthcoming climate change conference in Paris.

“The support of the Chinese is essential,” he said, at a stopover in Chinese southwestern megacity of Chongqing, adding: “The fight against global warming is a humanitarian issue – how the planet can be preserved – and it is also an issue of considerable economic importance, of what we call green growth.”

Angela Merkel also in China

The French president’s trip comes hot on the heels of a similar visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was on her eighth visit to  China last week hoping to drum up business, and after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited both Britain and the US in the last two months.

Several major EU countries including Germany, France and Britain are wooing China in the hope of winning business and becoming hubs for the growing overseas trade of its yuan currency.

Hollande is accompanied by around 40 heads of French firms and a number of ministers, and visited a Sino-French water treatment company in Chongqing to highlight cooperation in green growth industries.

China’s socialist market economy is the world’s second largest economy by nominal GDP at $10.36 trillion and at $17.7 trillion, the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity according to the IMF.