U.S. pleased with progress made during Hu's visit
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The United States is pleased with the progress achieved during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit, a U.S. Treasury Department official said on Friday.
"Generally speaking, we are pleased with the progress that was made," said Lael Brainard, undersecretary for international affairs.
Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, Brainard lauded the agreements in areas of government procurement, intellectual property, the currency exchange rate and export deals as the four main achievements.
She said that concrete progress has been made in the intellectual property protection, particularly in the area of software.
As to the currency issue, which is the main concern of many economists and politicians in the United States, Brainard said, "That is very important to recognize that, there is progress ... If you look back to the last six months, the Chinese currency has appreciated against the U.S. dollar by 3.5 percent in nominal terms. If you take into account the much faster inflation rate in China relative to the U.S., this amounts to roughly 10 percent appreciation on an annual base."
Noting the U.S. would continue to engage with China on the currency issue, she said: "we can not focus only on one issue, we have a very broad set of interests with China."
"China's economic dynamism presents a challenge but also an opportunity," she said.
Calling China a very important export destination market for the United States, Brainard said U.S. exports to China are growing twice as fast as they are to the rest of the world in the past year, and are on track to exceed 100 billion dollars.
"Whether we can achieve our ambitious export goals would depend in a great measure on the Chinese market given its growth," she said.
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