High-tech restriction 'impairs' both sides

Commerce official urges West to lift export limits on China

Washington and Brussels should lift restrictions on high-tech exports to China, a limit that has impaired their competitiveness in the world's fastest-growing major market, a trade official said.

Exports of high-tech products from the United States to China have fallen sharply over the years as their share in China dropped from 18.3 percent in 2001 to only 6.3 percent in 2011, Vice-Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan said in Shanghai on Friday.