China, U.S. to strengthen economic ties and enhance bilateral relations

WASHINGTON, June 23 (NsNewsWire) — The upcoming annual China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Washington, D.C., is expected to expand economic and trade cooperation between the world’s two largest economies, seek coordination in the international financial system and enhance overall bilateral relations more steadily, U.S. experts said.

GLOBAL ECONOMY & MACRO-ECONOMIC POLICY

Concerns about the global economy and each other’s macro-economic policy will continue to be the key issues on the economic agenda of the high-level China-U.S. dialogue that will start on Tuesday, said Yukon Huang, a former World Bank’s country director for China and a senior associate with the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reports Xinhua.

More than six years after the global financial crisis, the world economy remains moderate and uneven. “China’s economy is slowing down. The American economy appears to be getting back on a sound footing but not entirely clear”, while the Federal Reserve ” looks like going to actually start increasing interest rates” this year, Huang told Xinhua in an interview, noting that all these factors will have implications for the fragile global recovery.

“The big question would be how is the U.S. economy doing? Is China being able to stabilize its economy? Is it going to be able to put in place the reforms so that it can continue growing rapidly? ” Huang said of questions likely to be raised by China and U.S. officials at the dialogue.

As the world’s two largest economies, the U.S. and China are increasingly economically interdependent, with their trade volume hitting 550 billion U.S. dollars last year and their combined economies accounting for about 40 percent of recent global GDP growth. Both sides have an enormous stake in each other’s economic performance, and also a joint possibility to pursue policies that support the global economy.

Paul Gruenwald, Standard & Poor’s chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region, said the U.S. and China economic conditions are the two most important issues by far during his talks with securities issuers, investors, other stakeholders, and the media in the region.

“We think the risks of a downside in China have actually fallen over the last couple of months,” Gruenwald told reporters in New York last week. “That’s because the authorities are being more aggressive in trying to make sure that the local government financing is more solid.”