Chinese and US business leaders agreed in Beijing Wednesday that the prospects for bilateral trade were very optimistic.

Wan Jifei, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), China's largest trade promotion organization, said China kept opening its domestic market since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.

"That provided huge business opportunities for the foreign business communities, including those from the United States," Wan said during the US-China Business Dialogue.

Chinese and US economies were very complementary and healthy bilateral political relations ensured sound economic ties, Wan said.

President and chief executive of the US Chamber of Commerce Thomas J. Donohue said China had implemented its WTO commitments and he hoped those steps could be strengthened and expanded.

Donohue said he was pleased to see the growth of Chinese imports from the United States exceeded or equaled that of exports in the first eight months of 2003.

The US side hoped to further enlarge exports to China to balance trade, Donohue added.

Statistics from Chinese Customs show that China-US trade hit US$78.5 billion in the first eight months of this year, up 30.4 percent year-on-year.

China recorded US$56.5 billion in exports and US$22 billion in imports.

But US restrictions on exports of high-tech products, for which China has a huge demand, hindered the growth of China's imports from the United States, trade analysts said.

In 2002, China imported US$82.8 billion worth of high-tech products, an increase of 29 percent year-on-year.

But the imports of such products from the United States reached only US$4.1 billion, accounting for 4.9 percent of China's total imports of high-tech products.

(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2003)