BEIJING - China will continue to boost economic and trade cooperation with the United States in the future, Chinese Vice-Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said on Sunday.

Gao, also international trade representative of the ministry, made the pledge in an article published by Xinhua prior to Vice-President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama reached important consensus on establishing a mutually beneficial cooperative partnership in 2011, giving "clear direction on the development of Sino-US economic and trade relations in the new period," the official said.

To broaden and deepen bilateral economic and trade cooperation, Gao suggested that China and the US should firstly strengthen their policy coordination.

As the largest developing country and developed country in the world, China and the US should strengthen economic and trade policy dialogue and coordination during the world economy's recovery.

The two sides should maintain and strengthen communication and coordination in the Doha Round negotiations, International Monetary Fund reform and other global economic and trade affairs, Gao said.

He called on the two sides to implement the outcomes of the G20 summit in Cannes and work together to address the challenges posed by Europe's debt crisis in order to dispell the haze of the global financial crisis.

Secondly, Gao urged the two sides to balance bilateral trade.

In future, China will carry out a more positive opening-up policy, Gao said, noting China's import scale will hopefully exceed $8,000 billion in the next five years and its trade partners including the US will share its business opportunities.

China is willing to enhance communication and cooperation with the US to promote trade liberalization and facilitation, so as to improve the trade imbalance, he said.

China also hopes the United States will take practical measures to ease its export controls placed on China and expand its exports of competitive high-tech products to China, the minister added.

Thirdly, Gao pledged to improve levels of two-way investment, promising, "We will continue to positively attract foreign investment, step up the opening-up of the market, and try to address US concern on IPR (intellectual property rights) protection, industrial policy and investment environment."

China also expects fair and rational treatment from the United States for its enterprises, especially their investment in America, he said.

Fourthly, Gao vowed to expand bilateral industrial cooperation. "China will work with the United States to explore the feasibility of cooperation in the fields of energy saving, environmental protection, IT, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials, new-energy vehicles, medicine, medical equipment and tourism," he said.

China and the US could strengthen infrastructure cooperation under the Framework for 10-Year Cooperation on Energy and Environment and other mechanisms, Gao added.

"China encourages both country's enterprises to search for cooperation opportunities in the construction of high-speed railways, highways, harbors and docks," the official said, "and also in network upgrading."

The article argues that trade between China and the United States has a solid foundation.

Sino-US trade volume rose to a new high of $446.7 billion in 2011. Export from the US to China amounted to $122.2 billion, a 20 percent growth year-on-year.

Since 2007, China has been the fastest-growing market for US exports and the the focus of U.S. plans to double its exports.

In 2011, the contracted amount of US investment in China climbed to $7.4 billion, an increase of 9.7 percent year-on-year, while China's direct investment in the US is $6 billion , covering areas of industry, agriculture, science, finance and project contracting.

Through joint efforts, the two sides have steadily pushed their cooperation in IPR, new energy, energy saving and environmental protection, medicine, aviation, project contracting and other fields.

"Certainly, we are facing many challenges in our economic and trade cooperation, but the goal of mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation will remain unchanged," Gao said.

Focusing on sustainable and balanced development of China-US economic and trade cooperation will be continued to form the foundation of bilateral relations, he noted.