China and the United States will face difficult challenges in bilateral trade in 2006 and the two governments have to do "big jobs" in solving many of their trade problems.

Assistant US Trade Representative Timothy P. Stratford made the remarks Thursday in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the ongoing 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which opened Tuesday.

Stratford, who took the helm as chief of the US Trade Representative Office of China Affairs in September, said, "There will not be big change to the trade deficits (on the US side) during the next year."

However, "It is important on the United States side for its people to understand that there're lots of causes for the trading imbalance. And the largest causes of trading imbalance are not matters of trade policies. They have to do with macro-economic factors," said the US trade official.

The large and rapidly-growing trade gap, which "is not sustainable for the long-term health of the US economy," has caused concerns at the United State, Stratford said. "It will take a longer period of time to solve the trade gap."

The difference of economy growth and the different saving and consumption habits in the two countries have much to do with the imbalance than with trading practices, he said.

Ever since China joined the world trade body in 2001, the Chinese government has made much progress in implementing its obligations under WTO rules, said the official.

He also called on the Chinese government to make more efforts in keeping its WTO obligations so as to increase its imports from the United States for the trade deficits to "go down somewhat" but "not tremendous amount."

Also on Thursday, Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing announced in Beijing that China would have almost honored its tariff cut commitment to the WTO in full with the reduction of import tariffs on over 100 categories of products next year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2005)