1st LD: China, U.S. to exchange negative lists of investment treaty talks

China and the United States are expected to exchange negative lists of bilateral investment treaty (BIT) "this month or next month," which could pave the way for substantial achievement on the negotiations in this regard in September, China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said Friday.

Zhu made the remarks at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-D.C. based think tank, on the sidelines of the ongoing spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, after U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman told Xinhua earlier Friday that he expected the two sides to exchange the negative lists soon.

Zhu said Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Obama gave clear instructions to negotiating teams of both sides that it 's time to exchange negative lists to speed up BIT talks when they met last November, as the investment treaty has become a top priority for bilateral economic relations.

It's not realistic to expect the BIT talks to be concluded in September when President Xi Jinping makes his first state visit to the United States, but the two sides could reach "a big achievement" on the talks by then, Zhu said.

"We try very hard to conclude negotiations" of the investment treaty next year based on "reality and hard work of both negotiation teams," said Zhu. Endite