US, China ink $45bn of export deals

The United States and China have agreed export deals worth $45 billion on the margins of President Hu Jintao's US state visit, a senior Washington official said Wednesday.

"We will be announcing that $45 billion of US export deals have been concluded, supporting 235,000 US jobs," the official said.

The total includes deals worth $25 billion spread over 70 contracts and 12 US states and a massive contract for Boeing.

"The Chinese government will announce that it will approve the purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft, with an estimated value of $19 billion," the official said.

Chinese businesses have descended on the United States to coincide with Hu's four-day visit, inking agreements with US titans Alcoa, General Electric, Honeywell, Westinghouse and Caterpillar.

The deals span sectors as diverse as agriculture, gasification, railways and hybrid buses.

An additional three billion dollars' worth of Chinese investment in the United States has also been announced.

Trade spats have complicated relations in recent years, with US officials and lawmakers appearing increasingly exasperated about cheap Chinese products flooding the US market.

Washington has complained that Beijing has kept the value of its currency artificially low to boost its exports, risking dangerous imbalances in the global economy.

But US officials on Wednesday tried to shift the focus onto the benefits of trade with China, namely Chinese investment in the United States and US exports to China.

Both presidents and expected to meet with US and Chinese chief executives later in the day to underscore that message.

"(The) US firms are some of the major firms that have been exporting products to China, and the Chinese firms that have

invested in the United States and created jobs in the United States," the US official said.

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