Home Economy China, US sign trade pacts paving way for strategic dialogue

China, US sign trade pacts paving way for strategic dialogue

By IANS

Beijing : China and the US Tuesday signed a series of agreements to deepen their collaboration to resolve contentious issues such as product safety, energy and environmental protection, paving the way for third strategic dialogue.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi called this one-day closed-door meeting of 18th Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade “substantial” and “evidence of sincere goodwill from both sides to resolve economic and trade issues through peaceful consultation.”

The successful outcome of Tuesday’s meeting established a positive tone for the third China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue, which is to start Wednesday, and provided a forceful boost to trade development, she said.

Product safety, an issue that has sparked many disputes since spring, appeared to have dominated the agenda Tuesday, since three of the 14 agreements and memoranda agreed upon involve cooperation on the safety of drugs, medical devices, food and feed, alcohol and tobacco.

The two sides also agreed to facilitate travel of Chinese tourist group to the US, establish a forum on environmental protection technology and industrial cooperation and work more closely in the areas of agricultural science and technology and development of bio-fuels.

The meeting also completed guidelines on China-US high-technology and strategic trade development, in an apparent effort to address chronic trade imbalances.

US commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Wu Yi warned Tuesday morning about the rise of and dangers from protectionist forces, and both expressed hope that the annual meeting and the following two-day strategic economic dialogue would have a commitment to openness.

“The way that we want to reduce our deficit is by exporting more, not by reducing imports,” Gutierrez said.

The latest figures show that between January and November, China-US trade expanded 15.7 percent to $276.21 billion as compared to the figure last year.

Wu strongly criticized the “inharmonious notes” in China-US trade ties, marked by what she described as a sharp rise in the number of US Congressional actions against China, the politicisation of economic and trade issues, tighter controls on certain types of exports to China and what she termed as the purposeful exaggeration of China’s food and product safety practices.

Dismissing concerns that China would narrow the scope of its opening-up policies, Wu reiterated that the country would not change its stance on the broader use of foreign capital. “China’s door has been and will be resolutely opened to the outside world,” she said.

The two-day China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue will focus on six long-term topics: the challenges of globalisation, trade integration, balanced economic development, the economic impact of energy choices, economic growth and sustainability and bilateral investment.