Obama, Jinping Chart Path Forward on BIT, Details Still Unclear
President Barack Obama and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pledged to speed up progress on Bilateral Investment Treaty talks during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Beijing, saying both sides expect to exchange proposals in early 2015 on a list of sectors that won’t be liberalized in the treaty. U.S. trade officials and business leaders are battling to ensure the list of Chinese sectors exempt from the treaty is as limited as possible, thereby allowing U.S. companies more access to the Chinese market (see 1410160012).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The two sides have held 15 rounds of negotiations on the BIT, but neither side is touting significant progress (see 14092419). “We agreed to accelerate the negotiations of the BIT, and we’ll make efforts to reach agreement on the core issues and the major articles of the treaty text, and to initiate the negative list of negotiations in 2015,” said Jinping in a press conference with Obama on Nov. 12. The White House also vowed (here) to devote “all the resources necessary toward the achievement of a high-standard and comprehensive BIT that embodies the principles of non-discrimination, fairness, openness, and transparency.”
U.S.-China Business Council President John Frisbie lauded the BIT remarks, while emphasizing the benefits a final deal will deliver to both economies (here). “It is important to remember that investment barriers in China are market access barriers. USCBC estimates that China is now at least a $350 billion market for the American economy—and would be more if not for investment barriers," said Frisbie in a statement. "The inability of many American industries to succeed in China has been directly related to the lack of obligations that encourage China to open up its market more fully to US participation."