China, in the principle of maintaining a general trade balance, attaches importance to US trade deficit with China, said Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi here on Monday at a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It's the complementarity rather than competition and the different statistic modes of the Chinese and US economies that forged the relatively large trade deficit of the US side, Wu said.

"Even though, we will make joint efforts with the United States, including to promote US exports of hi-tech products and technology to China, to reach a generally balanced trade between the two countries," Wu noted.

Wu said Sino-US economic and trade cooperation constitutes an important basis and a strong driving force for the steady growth of bilateral relations and conforms with the common interests of both sides.

The two sides should treasure the hard-won result of bilateral economic and trade cooperation and properly handle their disputes with a long-term perspective and in the principle of equality, reciprocity and development so as to push bilateral economic and trade cooperation to a new stage, Wu said.

Rice said the US side also expects to continuously expand bilateral economic and trade relations through concrete measures taken by the two sides.

The US people and congressmen paid much attention to China's growing economy, Rice said, noting the Chinese economy has increasing influence on the world economy with its soaring growth and expanding scale and every country hopes to benefit from that.

They also exchanged views on exchange and cooperation in other fields such as energy and public healthcare.

Rice visited China in 2002 and 2004 respectively, as the national security adviser. This is her first China tour since she became the top US diplomat in January.

China is the last leg of Rice's Asian tour, which has already taken her to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Source: Xinhua