BEIJING: China hopes to strengthen its economic and trade ties with the US and plans to increase imports of energy, agricultural products, manufactured goods and services trade from the country, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a report released on Thursday. China and the US are the world’s two largest economies, accounting for 40 percent of the global economy and 30 percent of the world’s foreign direct investment, according to MOFCOM’s research report on China-US economic and trade relations. Bilateral trade and economic cooperation has reached unprecedented depth and breadth, closely linking their economies. China would like to increase imports of US agricultural products such as soybeans and cotton, and speed up negotiations with the US regarding traceability and inspection and quarantine of US beef imports, which would benefit 6 million American farmers, according to the report. China is also willing to discuss importing more US aircraft, microchips, machine tools and other high-tech products, the MOFCOM report said. “China-US economic and trade relations affect the global economy… Cooperation is the right choice for the two countries,” MOFCOM Spokesman Sun Jiwen said at a press conference in Beijing.
“China lags behind the US in some sectors including energy, agricultural products and high-tech products, and expanding imports from the US would bring some advanced technology and management experience for Chinese firms,” Li Jian, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday. Li said that increasing imports from the US will also help boost bilateral economic and trade relations. Xu Hongcai, deputy chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, noted that the Sino-US trade imbalance was mainly caused by the goods trade imbalance between the two countries, and that increasing services trade — an area in which the US has strong advantages — will help balance bilateral trade. China’s trade surplus with the US in the first quarter stood at 342.1 billion yuan ($49.8 billion), up 6.7 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on April 13.
