The Minister of Commerce said in an American TV interview on June 3 that China is working to even its trade imbalance with the US.

"A globally large trade surplus on the Chinese side is a kind of pressure on ourselves," Bo Xilai told Darren Gersh, a correspondent for Nightly Business Report on the Public Broadcast Service.

Last year China's foreign trade was worth US$1.15 trillion but its surplus was only US$20 billion, said Bo, and a large proportion of this was used to buy US securities, the rate of return from which is not very high.

He said the government has been trying to increase imports from the US, which rose from being worth US$20 billion in 2002 to US$44 billion last year.

Meanwhile, the US export growth rate to China was 31.9 percent last year, compared to the average growth rate of overall US foreign trade to the rest of the world of 12.9 percent.

Bo said that China found it difficult to purchase more US products because the US has high-tech export controls and many low-end products are no longer being produced there.

He said evaluation of bilateral economic and commercial relations should not only focus on trade in goods, but also include market occupation rate.

The ability of China to occupy the American market is merely through exports, but the US can also take a fairly large market share in China through investment, Bo said.

US companies made US$75 billion last year through investment in the Chinese market, and US-invested companies in China produced exports valued at over US$70 billion.

"It is the genuine benefit that American companies can reap from bilateral economic and trade relations with China," said Bo.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2005)