US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit Beijing next month for two days of meetings with top Chinese officials aimed at strengthening the economic relationship between the United States and China, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday.

Geithner is due to meet top Chinese economic policymakers on June 1-2 "to discuss a range of issues of importance to both countries, including strengthening US-China economic ties to promote stable, balanced and sustained economic growth in the two nations," the Treasury Department said in a statement.

The trip is Geithner's first to China since taking office.

Treasury did not specify with whom Geithner would meet, though Geithner's predecessor Henry Paulson repeatedly met Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

Last month, the Geithner Treasury declined to label China a currency manipulator, retreating from tough talk last year when a campaigning Barack Obama said Beijing had kept its currency's exchange rate unfairly low.

(Agencies via China Daily May 13, 2009)