US businesses are hoping for a pledge from US and Chinese officials at talks in Chicago this week to move ahead quickly on a planned investment pact between the two nations.
The US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meetings scheduled to run from tomorrow through Thursday are aimed at smoothing out snags ranging from beef exports to currency manipulation in a trade relationship worth more than US$600 billion per year.
Although there are no plans for formal negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty, lobbyists hope officials can build on leaders’ recent commitments to speed up talks.
“We hope there is a positive statement about their intent to continue to move those negotiations forward as quickly as possible,” US-China Business Council vice president Erin Ennis said.
A treaty would help lower investment barriers by limiting the sectors in which foreign investment is restricted, which currently range from soybean crushing to telecommunications.
“Those negotiations loom large in the background [of the joint commission] in terms of China opening its market much wider to foreign investment,” US Chamber of Commerce executive director for China Jeremie Waterman said.
US Trade Representative Michael Froman on Friday said the next step would be China’s offer on excluded sectors in early next year.
“We are encouraging them to ensure that that list is as short and as narrowly tailored as possible,” he said.
As talks begin, the Chamber of Commerce is due to announce the final ruling in a trade dispute over solar panel and cell imports from China and Taiwan. That decision could sour the mood by confirming duties that would almost triple the cost of some products.
However, US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzke, speaking on the same call as Froman, said she did not expect any impact on discussions, which would be led on China’s side by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋).
US officials also plan to keep up pressure on China’s protection of trade secrets and antitrust laws, which have been criticized for lacking transparency and targeting foreign companies, Froman said.
US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is set to press China on slow progress in accepting US beef 11 years after a mad cow disease scare. He is also likely to raise the issues of import restrictions on US cotton and barriers to imports of some US genetically modified crops.
“They have an approval process to consider the safety of those products, and it needs to be more responsive to the scientific process and also more timely,” said Jason Hafemeister, trade policy coordinator at the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service.
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