The heads of two of Australia's largest law firms have had a rare audience with the Prime Minister during policy talks between Australia and China.

Mallesons Stephen Jaques CEO Robert Milliner and Corrs Chambers Westgarth head John Denton met Prime Minister Julia Gillard in China on Tuesday (26 April) as part of a high-powered Australian business delegation.

Milliner and Denton were among 11 Australian corporate heavyweights that are part of the Australia- China CEO roundtable.

The annual meeting was held in Beijing to coincide with Ms Gillard's visit to the communist nation.

"The intention of the meetings is to understand what are issues for business on both sides," said Milliner. "For the Australian services sector, not just legal, but [also] accountancy, architecture and education... We talk about what are some of the impediments to major trade and investment between Australia and China."

In addition to their roles as the heads of Mallesons and Corrs, Milliner and Denton have extensive links with the Australian business community. They are both members of the Business Council of Australia, with Milliner the chair of the council's Regulation Task Force and Denton the chair of the Global Engagement Task Force. Denton is also one of two Australian delegates to the B20, the business reference group to the G20.

Milliner said that while many companies on the Chinese side of the delegation are clients, the main purpose of the roundtable is not to drum up business but is to aid policy discussions between the two nations.

"There is an interchange of dialogue about a range of issues," says Milliner. "For example, the planning and approval process in Australia and the implications of a skills shortage in Australia were discussed."

Milliner confirmed that the group focuses on trade and economic issues, with human rights or social topics not discussed formally.

Delegates from both sides - which also included the head of BHP Billiton, Marius Kloppers, and the head of ANZ, Mike Smith - gave presentations on four topics. Milliner spoke about energy security between Australia and China, while Denton addressed the role of finance in promoting economic and trade co-operation between the two countries.

"The main issue I focussed on concerned regulation issues and the need for their to be a transparent and open market with transparent prices," says Milliner. "With energy security, one of the biggest issues in the supply chain is the way in which there is transparency around future energy needs and prices are an important signal in that, so having a proper price signalling market is important."

After spending around four hours discussing these bilateral business issues, a formal presentation was made to Ms Gillard and Chinese vice-premier Li Keqiang.

Both Ms Gillard and Keqiang then provide a formal government response on those topics.

With the China-Australia CEO roundtable now an annual event, with last year's meeting held in Canberra in June with then prime minster Kevin Rudd in attendance, Milliner said that attendees were now also looking to extend possible meetings to be outside that annual framework.

"From a BCA point of view, we have discussed trying to continue the engagement between meetings around specific issues," he says.