Vice-Premier urges sincerity in Sino-US cooperation

BEIJING - Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan on Thursday called for sincerity and action from China and the United States so as to further strengthen economic cooperation between the two sides amid a "complex" and "grim" world economic situation.

Wang made the remarks when addressing the opening session of the fourth round of China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogues (S&ED), which kicked off Thursday in Beijing.

"I hope the two sides will take the current round of dialogues as an opportunity to consider both immediate and long-term interests, further advance our cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, financial, infrastructural and other fields," Wang said at the joint opening session of the S&ED.

Wang said that he hoped the two sides would step up communication and coordination under the G20 and other multilateral frameworks, translate the agreement of presidents of the two countries into concrete outcomes, and jointly promote strong, sustainable and balanced economic growth of both countries and the world at large.

The S&ED was initiated in 2009. Wang said that since its establishment, 151 outcomes have been achieved in the economic cooperation between China and the United States.

The two sides have deepened macroeconomic, trade and investment, fiscal and financial cooperation, worked together to meet various challenges, including the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, and jointly pushed forward global economic governance reform.

"What we have done has played an important role in promoting economic growth and job creation in our two countries," Wang said.

He said that the wide-ranging dialogue mechanism is "pragmatic and productive" in that it has accommodated respective concerns and avoided the "politicization" of economic issues to the greatest extent possible.

He said the S&ED has demonstrated the mutually beneficial nature of bilateral cooperation, and has upheld the common interests of the people of both countries in terms of economic relations.

Speaking at the opening session, the vice premier also referred to a recent meeting between President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama in Seoul, and a successful visit by Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping to the United States.

Wang said that the top leaders have reaffirmed the strategic goal of building a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.