Minister Bo Xilai meeting with US Senators

　On March 23, Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai held talks with the visiting US senators Charles Schumer, Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn in Beijing, and Bo Xilai made clear China's position on China-US Trade Balance and RMB Exchange Rate.

　　Bo Xilai said that China-US economic relations developed quickly and China had become the third largest trading partner and the forth largest export destination of the US. In the past five years, annual export increase rate of the US was 5.2%, while increase rate of export to China reached 19.7%. New York, South Carolina and Oklahoma, of which the three senators are representatives, were all the most important export destinations of China.

　　Bo Xilai said that, at present, the US trade deficit with China was transferred. While the trade deficit with China was growing, the proportion of the US trade deficit with Asia Pacific in the US total trade deficit dropped from 57% in 1999 to 43% in 2005. The fast growth of China-US trade was determined by their mutual economic complementarity, and the China-US trade materialized the mutual complementarity of market economy. Because of the feature of the US industrial structure itself, the US would import its needed low- and mid-range products from other countries even if it does not import from China. Although China had trade surplus with the US, a great deal products profits went to the US importer and the US consumer also benefited from that. By estimate, China's commodities of good quality and low price saved US$100 billion for the US consumers every year. We should not focus on Tangible Goods Trade only in terms of China-US trade, as the US has trade surplus in service trade. In addition, through investing in China the US enterprises possessed a market share of about US$100 billion in China and also exported to other markets.

　　Bo Xilai pointed out that the development of China-US trade did not impact the US domestic overall employment. Decreasing employment in some production departments in the US was due to the adjustment of the US industrial structure itself, and increasing export of China was not to be blamed. A great number of job vacancies were created in some service departments with the development of bilateral trade, much more than the vanished positions in production departments.

　　Bo Xilai expressed that China was not in pursuit of large trade surplus with the US and would like to import more from the US to promote trade balance between two countries. China hoped that the US could cancel the high-tech export control to China as soon as possible, and this would bring a great number of trade opportunities to the US.

　　Bo Xilai stressed that the US should not speculate the problem of trade deficit and RMB exchange rate despite the existence of trade deficit between two countries. If the US imposed high Customs duty on China's products inconsiderately, China-US economic partnership would be definitely harmed and the employment in logistics created due to china's export would also be impacted. Noticing that the US senator Charles Schumer etc paid a great attention to the problem of trade deficit and RMB exchange rate, China hoped that, through visiting and communication, the China-US economic and trading development could be estimated roundly to reach objective conclusion.

　　Charles Schumer expressed that, through this visiting to China, he learnt a lot and both sides understood each other better. There were objective reasons of the existence of US-China trade deficit. The US was the largest Economy and China was the fasted growing Economy in the world. The future of both countries would be inevitably combined with each other. He hoped that the US and China would strengthen talks in future to promote common prosperity.

　　Lindsey Graham hoped that a good trading partnership could be kept between two countries, and the US would like to make great efforts together with China to improve the environment of bilateral economic and trading partnership development. Tom Coburn expressed understanding to China's main positions. And he said that China's prosperity and stabilization were beneficial for the US and China's keeping harmonious partnership with its trading partners was beneficial for the world.

　　During the talks Bo Xilai also introduced China's Strengthening on IPR Protection to the US Senators.