Commerce Minister Bo Xilai has called on the US to work with China to make a bigger "cake of trade" for win-win results.

"We should continue expanding two-way trade from a long-term perspective on the road of win-win cooperation," he said at a dinner of the American Chamber of Commerce in China held in Beijing on Friday.

Citing the framework agreement on China's purchase of 70 Boeing planes signed during President George W. Bush's successful visit to China late last month, Bo said China is expected to need 500 more planes by the year 2010 and more than 2,000 in the year 2020.

"The Chinese market is still at the puberty stage, and this is the foundation lies for our cooperation," Bo said.

Hailing the signing of the agreement between China and the US on China's textile export, which Bo described as a win-win deal, he said if the two countries could face trade friction in the spirit of mutual respect and keep composure, China and the US would surely get along well in bilateral trade.

On the much talked-about trade deficit between the two countries, he said trade between China and the US is complementary rather than competitive.

"Some people in the US are complaining that China's exports have resulted in the loss of jobs there. However, as far as I know, thanks to growing China-US trade, the jobs lost in the manufacturing sector have been more than offset with new jobs in the circulation field," Bo said.

In fact, he added, China has earned a very tiny proportion of the profits from manufactured goods exported to the US, and US importers and retailers have got the lion's share of the profits.

Moreover, China has used a fairly big part of its hard-earned foreign exchange to buy US treasury bonds, he said.

"On the whole, trade between China and the US is balanced, and China is importing an increasing number of US products," Bo said, adding that China has become the fourth biggest market of the US this year.

On the issue of intellectual property rights (IPR), he said China has set IPR protection as a state policy, which is vital for the country to cultivate its capability of independent innovation.

China welcomes overseas investors to cooperate in this field, and will take seriously any case of IPR infringement, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2005)