Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming met respectively with John Bryson, US Secretary of Commerce, and Jim McDermott, Representative of Washington State, on November 11 in Hawaii, USA. The two sides exchanged in-depth views over issues in China-US trade and economic relations.
Mr. Chen elaborated on relations between exchange rate and trade. First, in recent years, China’s import growth rate has always been higher than that of export, and foreign trade surplus has been on the decrease month by month, and year by year, trade surplus accounting for only 1.4% of total GDP at present; second, since communication mechanism established, the two countries have conducted comparative analysis over statistics of the two sides annually, and the actual trade deficit of US is substantially lower than that published previously; third, China’s trade with other countries and regions are basically balanced, and almost all trade surplus are from trade with US; fourth, among trade surplus with the US, nearly 80% is from processing trade and 60% from US-invested enterprises; fifth, in the processing trade link, the value added in China only accounts for 15-20% of the total value of the products. All the above facts show that, the RMB exchange rate is basically reasonable. Even if adjusted, it can not solve the trade deficit problem of the US. China would like to expand import from the US and promote bilateral trade balance. However, the US put many products into control, which will lose nearly $100 billion of export to China.
As to intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, Mr. Chen said that China’s own development needs more attention on innovation and IPR protection. The special campaign against IPR infringement and counterfeits carried out last year nationwide has made remarkable achievement. Currently, China has set up a regular organization for national IPR protection, which is made up of 26 departments, and is establishing and improving long-term mechanism for IPR protection.
When meeting with Mr. Bryson, Mr. Chen also expressed his concern that the US turn down, on the pretext of US security, Chinese enterprises that go to the US to invest and the US is reluctant to grant visas to them.
Mr. Bryson expressed his understanding on Mr. Chen, and agreed that Chinese enterprises expand investment in the US. He said that China-US trade relations are becoming increasingly important, and to establish mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation has become an important part for the bilateral ties. With the development of Chinese economy, the US would like to strengthen cooperation with China in many fields, and he believed that only cooperation can help solve problems such as friction and trade imbalance. Mr. Bryson wished the 22nd China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade to be held in China a success.
Mr. McDermott said that, since he had visited China for several times, he personally experienced China’s great change over the past three decades. He would like to know more about China, and he will be delighted to witness closer ties between China and the US, and more consensuses reached. [Chinese version is available on Xinhuanet.com]
(Source: IPR in China)
