International Trade Law News

The U.S. and China today held the annual senior-level meeting of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). Established in 1983, the JCCT is an ongoing dialogue to address issues affecting U.S.-China trade and investment.

During today’s meeting, China committed to addressing a number of U.S. trade concerns in three areas: enhancing access of U.S. companies and farmers and ranchers to the Chinese market; improving protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China; and moving toward a transparent and market-oriented system of government procurement in China.

Specifically, China agreed to the following measures: reopening its market to U.S. beef exports; launching negotiations to join the WTO government procurement agreement; requiring all computers produced in or imported into China to use legal software; closing optical disk plants that produce pirated CDs and DVDs and stepped up enforcement of IPR; requiring all trade-related measures to be published in the China Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Gazette, issued by the Ministry of Commerce; eliminating barriers to trade in medical devices; and the launching of a dialogue on the steel industry.

The U.S. and China also agreed to establish a U.S.-China High Technology andStrategic Trade Working Group under the JCCT to review export control cooperation and facilitate high technology trade. Among the Group’s first activities will be planning a bilateral export control seminar in China.

The USTR's fact sheet describing the outcomes of the U.S. requests during the 17th annual JCCT can be found here.