Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi urged to enhance China-US economic and trade cooperation for the benefit of the two countries during her meeting with visiting US Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans in Beijing Wednesday.

Referring the economic and trade cooperation to an important basis for China-US relationship, Wu said that it is in line with the basic interests of two peoples to enhance China-US economic and trade cooperation.

As the two countries' economy is highly complementary to each other, Wu said, China and the United States have become the major trade partners to each other and their trade cooperation will enjoy a vast range of prospects.

Statistics show that the trade volume between China and the United States grew from two billion US dollars in 1978 to US$126 billion in 2003.

Referring to the trade friction that occurred between the two countries, Wu said that it is not surprising to have some trade friction along with the rapid growth of China-US economic and trade relations.

China hopes that the two sides could take a strategic perspective and follow the spirit of development, equality and mutual benefit to solve the problems through consultations on equal basis so as to achieve a win-win situation for China-US economic and trade cooperation, Wu said.

Evans said the stable economic development of the United States and China are important to the world and helps instill new vitality to the world economy.

The United States is willing to exert more efforts to further expand US-China trade relations, he said.

The two sides also had frank discussions on intellectual property protection and bilateral trade imbalances.

Previous to the meeting, Evans had an in-depth discussion with China's Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai on issues including export limits, trade structure and trade deficit.

Evans was invited to China by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. Some members of the US President's Export Council joined Evans in his China tour.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2004)