By Tamora Vidaillet
BEIJING, June 24 (Reuters) - China needs to remove more barriers to help cut a swelling trade imbalance and create a level playing field for U.S. firms but was making progress on piracy, U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans said on Thursday.
During a visit in which intellectual property rights (IPR) and greater market access topped the U.S. agenda, Evans said China had expressed its intention to close the U.S.-China trade gap but stopped short of pledging any imminent shopping sprees.
Washington's trade deficit with China hit a record $124 billion in 2003 and is expected to head higher, fuelling pre-election controversy in the United States over Beijing's fixed exchange rate regime and its impact on U.S. jobs.
"China must continue to remove its barriers to free trade so that there will be more 'Made in America' labels in the marketplace," Evans told a news conference.
"American exporters have serious concerns about market access in China," he said, adding Chinese leaders had expressed a desire for more U.S. goods from sectors such as aviation and power.
But Beijing had taken concrete measures to step up its fight against counterfeit goods, he said.
China's own State Council, or cabinet, has estimated the market value of counterfeit goods in China at about $19 billion to $24 billion annually.
The bogus trade affects a wide range of U.S. products, including films, music, publishing, software, pharmaceuticals, information technology and automotive parts. Pirated DVDs of the latest Hollywood blockbusters sell for about $1.
"(I was) impressed that Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi had started to conduct a countrywide campaign at the central, provincial and local city government levels as to the importance of IPR enforcement," he said.
China's Supreme People's Court had also made progress on producing a document that would toughen criminal penalties for counterfeiting, he said.
PLAYING DOWN
Follow-up meetings to Sino-U.S. trade discussions held in Washington in April had also touched on simmering trade disputes glossed over by Evans.
Evans said he had raised trade issues of concern including a preliminary determination by China's Commerce Ministry that Corning Inc had dumped optical fibre products exported from the United States into China.
He did not elaborate, saying only that there were bound to be issues to work through in a growing economic relationship.
Market-driven exchange rates and free capital flows were also discussed with senior Chinese economic officials such as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, he said, without elaborating.
Evans, who last visited Beijing in October, said in comments to reporters on Tuesday that the U.S. would continue to work with China on the adoption of a flexible exchange rate.
China's close but sometimes thorny trade relationship with Washington has been politicised ahead of U.S. elections in November.
U.S. manufacturers and some law-makers have argued Beijing's yuan currency, virtually pegged at around 8.28 per dollar, is making Chinese exports artificially cheap at the cost of U.S. jobs.