China will accelerate Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) talks with the US, said Chinese president Xi Jinping during the sixth round of China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing on Wednesday.
"The two countries should speed up BIT talks and try to make a high-standard, balanced agreement as soon as possible with the aim of improving economic relations between China and the US," said Xi at the opening ceremony of the summit.
Considering the significant economic volumes of the two countries and the integration of various interests between them, Sino-US cooperation will bring huge benefits to the world while confrontation will lead to disasters, he said.
China wants the US to narrow the national security reviews on Chinese investment, while the US side would like to see China keep its "negative list", which details sectors barring US investment, as short as possible.
China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said at a press briefing on Monday that both sides will reach new agreements on BIT talks. In other words, the two countries will launch the negative list-based negotiations at an early date.
At last year's dialogue, the two countries made big progress in BIT talks aimed at deepening economic relationship, in which bilateral trade exceeded $520 billion in 2013.
