Officials catch up on economic goals

Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang and US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew compared notes on Monday on economic cooperation between the two countries and the implementation of the consensus reached at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in early September.

Wang, leading a Chinese delegation, is in Washington to attend the 27th session of the China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) from Monday through Wednesday.

The US delegation is led by Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and US Trade Representative Michael Froman. US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also will attend the dialogue.

It will be the last high-level economic and trade dialogue between the two governments this year. The meeting will focus on how to implement the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama, exchanging views on major economic and trade issues and exploring ways to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

During the JCCT session, a business roundtable, symposium on the digital economy and a seminar on food security also have been scheduled.

First launched in May 1983, long before the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the JCCT has been regarded as one of the oldest high-level dialogue mechanisms between the two governments.

The Ministry of Commerce has described JCCT as playing an indispensable role in expanding mutually beneficial cooperation, easing economic and trade frictions and pushing forward China-US economic and trade relations on a healthy and stable development path.

Besides the annual high-level plenary sessions, 14 JCCT working groups meet throughout the year to address topics such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, information technology, travel and tourism and intellectual property rights, according to the US Department of Commerce.

The 26th JCCT meeting was held in Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong province, from Nov 21-23, 2015, when the two sides reached a consensus on a host of issues such as export control, intellectual property rights, innovation policy, two-way investment, competition policy, the approval of pharmaceutical and medical devices, and agricultural and forestry goods trade and aviation cooperation, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The US was China's second-largest trade partner, top export market and fourth-largest source of imports in 2015. Meanwhile, China was the largest trade partner for the US, the third-largest export market and the No. 1 source for imports, according to the ministry.

Two-way goods trade reached $558.4 billion in 2015, while total two-way foreign direct investment exceeded $160 billion.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com