Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (R), shakes hands with US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez during their meeting in Beijing July 11, 2005.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in Beijing Monday that China and the United States should properly handle problems in their trade and economic cooperation through fair dialogue and consultation.

Wen made the marks when meeting with US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Trade Representative Robert Portman and Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns, who are here for a China-US trade and economic joint committee annual meeting.

"Trade and economic cooperation are important component parts of Sino-US relations and a concrete indication of the two countries' interests," Wen said.

"It has been proved that the development of Sino-US trade and economic ties has yielded tangible benefits for the people of the two countries and promoted the mutual-beneficial cooperation between China and the United States," he said.

China is the largest developing country and the United States, the largest developed one, Wen said. "Maintaining the steady and fast growth in the two economies will contribute to the world economy in an era of globalization."

"Closer trade and economic cooperation between the two countries will benefit the world economy and that is very significant," he said.

The Chinese premier urged the two countries to deal with bilateral trade and economic ties with regard to long-term benefits and from a global point of view.

"We two countries should respect and handle each other's concerns, properly deal with problems emerging in our cooperation through equal dialogue and friendly consultation and exert common efforts for the sound development of our trade and economic cooperation."

Gutierrez said the one-day annual meeting of the US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) is a good meeting and the two sides had a "very honest and frank" dialogue during the session.

It "reflected a growing and strengthening partnership" between the two countries, he said, noting such cooperation will be a "true model" for the world.

Portman said the JCCT meeting resulted in steady progress in many fields. Johanns said he was optimistic about the future development of US-China agricultural trade.

At JCCT meeting, involving Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi and the US officials, were discussed a number of hot trade issues ranging from textile disputes to intellectual property rights protection.

Trade between the two countries has surged rapidly over the past years. In 2004, two-way trade hit 169.6 billion US dollars, about 69 times that the figure in early 1979 when China and the United States established full diplomatic relations.

The United States is now China's second largest trading partner after the European Union while China is the third largest trading partner of the United States.

Source: Xinhua