U.S.-China Business Dialogue meeting was held in Washington on January 19. Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Chao attended and addressed the meeting.

The meeting was sponsored jointly by China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), Chinese Ministry of Commerce, U.S.-China Business Council, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is one of the trade and investment activities carried by the delegation led by Wang Chao. At the meeting, China and the U.S. side have signed two agreements about high-speed train and investment & cooperation.

Wang said in his address that, in the last decade, China-U.S. trade and economic relations have been improving and deepening, with practical cooperation and mutual benefit and win-win result. On the occasion of President Hu Jintao state visit to U.S., we will recall the past and look into the future, which is important to the development of China-U.S. trade and investment relations.

According to Wang Chao, in the history of China-U.S. trade and economic relations, dialogue and cooperation are always the mainstream, and the common interests of the two sides are always overwhelming. And call for deepening cooperation between the two countries is always overwhelming inharmonious noise. Facts have proved and will continue to prove that China and the U.S. are not the opponents in a zero-sum game, but the partners for mutual benefit and win-win.

Wang Chao expounded on the trade surplus issue concerned by the U.S. He said, China have never been striving for trade surplus. China has been paying efforts to address this problem long ago through expanding domestic demand and increase of imports. China’s trade surplus of 2009 declined by 34% compared with that of previous year, and that of 2010 decreased by 6.2% compared with that of 2009. The proportion of trade surplus of 2010 in GDP is expected to go down by 3.4%, which is an internationally recognized reasonable level. Among China’s foreign trade, processing trade reaps trade surplus and general trade gets trade deficit; trade in goods reaps trade surplus and trade in services gets trade deficit. Foreign-invested enterprises including U.S. companies are the main beneficiaries. China will continue to be committed to increase import.

Wang Chao pointed out that, the current trade statistical mechanism and method do not take into consideration global production chain, international division of labor and multi-national production of components, the influence of intermediate products on the trade surplus of the final assembling country, which caused the fake look of bilateral trade balance.

Wang stressed that, to cut down China-U.S. trade imbalance, efforts by China itself will not work. The U.S. should face squarely the comparative advantages and market demand characteristics of the two sides, and take practical actions in liberalizing control on export to China, recognizing China’s market economy status, etc.

On the same day, Wang also attended the conference of the China General Chamber of Commerce-US (CGCCUSA), and accompanied President Hu Jintao to the welcome dinner hosted by U.S. President Obama in the White House.