Trade talks yield 'concrete' results

China and the United States made progress, including achieving some concrete results in multiple fields, in their first Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED) in Washington on Wednesday, according to a press release issued on Thursday by the Chinese delegation.

The outcomes cover areas from service trade, agriculture and high-tech exports to macroeconomic policy and finance.

On the agricultural front, the two sides talked about specific subjects such as lifting the ban on US poultry due to concerns over bird flu, the removal of a ban on two-way poultry product trade on a reciprocal basis, a value-added tax on imported dried distiller grains, safety certificates for food imports, approval of agricultural biotech products, export of China's dairy and aquatic products to the US, as well as a China-US collaborative study on the soybean industry.

After the conclusion of the CED, China and the US signed an agreement on final details of a protocol for US rice exports to China.

US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue applauded the deal on Thursday. "This is another great day for US agriculture and, in particular, for our rice growers and millers, who can now look forward to gaining access to the Chinese market," Purdue said in a statement.

He noted that the agreement with China has been in the works for more than a decade. China is the world's largest producer, consumer and importer of rice, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

China and the US also held in-depth talks on the service trade during the CED. The US side has long hoped for a further opening of the Chinese services market.

"China, while running a huge deficit in services trade with the US, believes that trade in services between the two countries is mutually beneficial and is willing to engage in mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation in the area," read the Chinese delegation's press release.

Expanding bilateral trade in services can also promote balanced trade relations between the two sides, it added.

In a breakout session, Chinese Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan and his US counterpart Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross agreed that the priorities of their economic and trade teams are to expand cooperation, manage differences and work constructively in narrowing the US trade deficit with China.

In another session, the two sides talked about cutting excess steel production capacity in the world and agreed to take measures to jointly address this global issue.

The two sides also talked about high-tech trade, an area that China has long called for the US to loosen its restrictions on. Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang repeated that call on Tuesday while addressing Chinese and US business leaders in a luncheon in Washington, describing it as a loss of opportunity for US businesses in the vast Chinese market.

At the CED on Wednesday, the two sides agreed that the US export controls need to be relaxed to help expand and balance bilateral trade, while ensuring that those products are used for civilian purposes and their intellectual property rights are protected.

The two sides spoke highly of the progress under the 100-Day Action Plan agreed upon by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump during their first summit in April.

During the 100-day period, US beef returned to the Chinese market after a 14-year ban; the US loosened its restrictions on the export of liquefied natural gas to China; and China approved the applications for five US bio-tech products. Meanwhile, the export of cooked poultry of China origin to the US also got under way.

At the CED, the two sides talked about a One-Year Action Plan on economic cooperation, covering the macro-economy, finance, trade and investment and global economic governance. Both sides said they will work further on the plan to ensure an early harvest.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com