After a day of pomp, President Xi Jinping and his British host sealed a multibillion-dollar deal to finance a British nuclear plant. Xi met Prime Minister David Cameron for a summit at noon yesterday at 10 Downing Street, where the two discussed bilateral issues – including the loss of British steel jobs to cheap Chinese exports and human rights – “openly and constructively”, Cameron told reporters afterwards. Cameron said he wanted to make Britain the “partner of choice for China in the West” and that he hoped to take ties to "a new level". READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Xi's UK visit “I totally reject the idea that you either have conservation of human rights and steel or you have a strong relationship with China. I want both and we are delivering both,” said Cameron, adding that the nuclear power plant project would use British steel. Xi said in response he wanted to build a global strategic partnership with London. “I’m making this state visit to the UK to build on past achievements... and take China-UK ties to a new level,” he said. The president added that China also faced problems with excess steel capacity and blamed the global financial crisis. “China has taken a series of steps to reduce capacity,” he said. Speaking later at a UK-China business summit, Cameron said Britain and China had signed deals “totalling almost 40 billion pounds [US$61 billion]”. Xi assured businessmen that China “would not close the door it has opened” to foreign investments and that there would be no hard landing for the world’s second largest economy. The two witnessed the signing of a £6 billion (HK$71 billion) investment into the Hinkley Point power plant in Somerset. France’s state utility company EDF, the owner of the project, announced earlier on the same day that it had reached an agreement with the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation, which would hold more than a third of the stake. The two companies also agreed in principle to develop two other nuclear power stations at Sizewell C in Suffolk and Bradwell B in Essex. CGN is expected to take the majority of the 66.5 per cent of the stake at Bradwell, whose reactors will be based on the Chinese company’s Fangchenggang Plant Unit 3/4 in China. Cameron described the Hinkley Point agreement as a “historic deal” that would power 6 million homes and create over 25,000 jobs. The project was once supposed to be in service by the end of 2017 but has encountered multiple delays and setbacks. Other deals included a £325 million package of creative and technological partnerships covering the film, television and automobile industries. Earlier, Xi had accompanied Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton to view examples of British-Chinese collaboration and innovation, including low-emission versions of a London black cab, a red London bus and James Bond’s favoured Aston Martin car – all of which are due to be developed through deals between the two countries. Xi was expected to visit Huawei Technologies, the world’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker, before going to a banquet hosted by the lord mayor and City of London. But China’s first major investment in a Western nuclear facility may yet be overshadowed. I’m making this state visit to the UK to build on past achievements... and take China-UK ties to a new level President Xi Jinping On Tuesday, EDF announced a three-year delay – to 2020 – to the launch deadline for its next-generation EPR reactor – the model planned for Hinkley Point. That meant Hinkley’s scheduled 2025 start-up was “now impossible”, said Steve Thomas, a professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich.“The EPR design is too costly, too financially risky and is unproven,” Thomas said. The first two reactors of this kind began construction in Finland in 2006 and France two years later. Both are yet to go online, beset by cost overruns and technical difficulties. But China was willing to take the risk at Hinkley Point to establish itself as a global supplier of nuclear technologies, said Thomas. “The UK is the only market open to it and participating in Hinkley … If China is to be successful in whatever market there is, it does need a prestigious high profile sale like the UK,” he said. Bradwell was clearly Beijing's objective, Thomas said, but that was some way off. “The first thing it has to do is finalise the design it wants to build and submit it for detailed scrutiny by the UK safety regulator. This assessment is likely to take about five years and a successful outcome cannot be guaranteed.” Additional reporting by Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press