President Hu Jintao has urged the US not to politicize trade disputes, emphasizing that China's fast growth provides tremendous commercial potential.

 

"China's development will present enormous business opportunities to the US and other countries," he told a Wednesday luncheon in Seattle attended by about 600 business leaders and government officials.

 

He said opportunities are in nuclear energy, natural gas and energy conservation. "China has a huge market and a strong demand for America's advanced technologies and management expertise."

 

Hu noted that China's annual economic growth averaged 9.6 percent during the last 27 years and the country has drawn in foreign direct investment of US$620 billion.

 

On trade frictions between China and the US, he said: "We should properly address these problems through consultation and dialogue on an equal footing."

 

Differences should not be politicized, he stressed.

 

The president also asked the US to ease export controls on high-tech goods and eliminate protectionist measures.

 

Hu's visit comes amid simmering trade disputes between the two countries, ranging from China's trade surplus and its currency exchange regime to US companies' access to the Chinese market.

 

Hu argued that the China trade has saved American consumers billions of dollars and created millions of jobs and brought "great benefits" to both sides.

 

He reiterated that China does not seek a big trade surplus with the US and is working hard to reduce the figure.

 

But he added that the surplus was a natural outcome of changes in US industry and of globalization.

 

"At least 90 percent of US imports from China are goods that are no longer produced in the US," Hu said. "If not from China, the US will still have to import these products from other suppliers."

 

He said China has been "increasing imports" from the US and has "worked hard" to reduce the trade surplus, citing China's recent purchase of Boeing aircraft, software, soybeans and other farm products worth more than US$16 billion.

 

He dangled more opportunities for US businesses, saying, for example, that China needs 2,000 new airplanes in 15 years.

 

On the currency, Hu said China wants a flexible but stable exchange rate and will continue to improve its flexibility.

 

"Our goal is to maintain the renminbi exchange rate basically stable, at an adaptive and equilibrium level," Hu said.

 

Hu's choice of Washington State as his first US stop, where he met executives of Boeing and software giant Microsoft, appears to be aimed at easing US concerns over the trade deficit and showing Americans China's purchasing power.

 

The state enjoys a trade surplus with China, largely due to the sale of Boeing airplanes, as well as wines and agricultural products. Its exports to China increased by 64 percent last year.

 

After a tour of Boeing's assembly factory earlier on Wednesday, Hu told about 6,000 employees of the aircraft maker that the close relationship between China and Boeing serves as a symbol of the good that can come from better trade relations.

 

"Boeing's cooperation with China is a vivid example of mutually beneficial cooperation and a win-win outcome that China and the US have achieved by trading with each other," he said.

 

"I sincerely hope that the economic and trade relations between our two countries will prosper further and fly higher, just like a Boeing plane."

 

(China Daily April 21, 2006)