Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao in Seattle on Wednesday called for joint efforts to resolve the issue of trade imbalance between China and the United States.

Speaking at a luncheon here hosted by the Washing State, the Seattle business community and local organizations, Hu said China took trade imbalance between the two countries seriously and worked hard to address the issue.

Chinese President Hu Jintao answers a question from the audience during a luncheon at the Future of Flight, near Boeing headquarters, in Everett, Washington, April 19, 2006. Hu is in the United States for his first formal visit as president and a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday. [Reuters]

"China continues to implement the policy of expanding domestic demand to drive its economic and social development," he said. "China does not seek a large trade surplus."

The Chinese president said his country's trade surplus with the United States, fundamentally speaking, results from different industrial restructuring of the two countries and the accelerated international division of labor driven by economic globalization.

At least 90 percent of US imports from China are goods that are no longer produced in the United States, he said.

Hu added that China had been increasing import from the United States and worked hard to reduce its trade surplus with the country.

China will further open its market to US goods and services, the president noted.
"On our part, we hope that the United States will take steps to promote the export of U.S. products to China, including easing export controls and reducing protectionist measures in the interest of addressing the trade imbalance issue in a better and more effective way," Hu said.

On the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), Hu said China was firm in protecting the IPR and fighting piracy.

"We will continue to improve the legal regime for IPR protection, set up law enforcement and crack down hard on IPR infringement to protect the lawful rights and interests of foreign IPR proprietors in China in accordance with the law," Hu said.
China will continue to strengthen cooperation in IPR protection with the United States and the international community, he noted.

As for the issue of the RMB exchange rate, Hu said China had taken "a highly responsible attitude" in deciding upon an exchange rate regime suitable to its national conditions in light of the actual state of its economic and social development and the need to ensure global financial and economic stability.

He noted that last July, China put in place a managed floating exchange rate regime based on market supply and demand with reference to a basket of currencies.

China will continue to firmly promote financial reforms, improve the RMB exchange rate setting mechanism, develop the foreign exchange market, increase the flexibility of the RMB exchange rate, and improve the capacity of financial institutions to set prices at their own discretion and to conduct risk management, Hu said.

"Our goal is to maintain the RMB exchange rate basically stable at an adaptive and equilibrium level," said the president. "This serves the interests of China, the interests of the United States and the common interests of all countries in Asia and the world at large."

On the issue of energy and resources, Hu said, "As China's economy continues to grow, so does its demand for energy."

China, as a major energy consumer and producer, "follows the basic principle of meeting its energy needs mainly through domestic supply," he said.

China places equal importance on energy development and conservation and focuses on more efficient use of energy, Hu said.

He said that since the 1990s, China had met over 90 percent of its energy demand with domestic supply.

In 2010, China's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to double that of year 2000 and the energy consumption per unit of GDP is to be reduced by 20 percent from that of 2005, Hu said.

"At the same time, China will speed up changing the pattern of economic growth, vigorously develop a circular economy and build a resource-conservation and environment friendly society to achieve sustainable development," said the president.
He promised that China would follow international practices and work together with the United States and other countries to conduct energy cooperation and maintain order in the international energy market.

Hu arrived here Tuesday for his first state visit to the United States, with Seattle being the first stop of his four-day stay in the country which ends on Friday.

The United States is the first leg of his five-nation tour, which will also take him to Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya.