Business
22:38, 08-Nov-2017
China and US sign $9 billion in business deals during Trump's visit to Beijing
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Chinese and US companies signed a 9 billion-US dollar business deal during the visit by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
China's biggest online retailer said it pledged to buy 1.2 billion US dollars of American beef and pork, but no other details of the 19 agreements signed at a ceremony attended by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were immediately released.
Such contract signings are a fixture of visits by foreign leaders to China and often involve agreements negotiated weeks or months earlier that Beijing saves to showcase its importance as a market.
"Addressing the imbalance in China trade has been a central focus of collaborative discussions between President Trump and President Xi. And achieving fair and reciprocal treatment for the companies is a shared objective," said Ross. "Today's signings are a good example of how we can productively build up our bilateral trade."
Online retailer JD.com said it would buy beef from the Montana Stock Growers Association and pork from Smithfield Foods Inc. over the next three years. Smithfield is owned by China's WH Group, the world's biggest pork packer.
China's trade surplus with the United States in October widened by 12.2 percent from a year earlier to 26.6 billion US dollars, according to Chinese customs data released Wednesday. The total surplus with the United States for the first 10 months of the year rose to 223 billion US dollars.
China is the third largest export market for the United States after Canada and Mexico. US exports to China rose 77 percent from 2007 to 2016.
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