2017年CRI Experts on China-US economic and trade ties before Trump visit（在线收听）

US President Donald Trump is now on his official state visit to China.

A US commerce delegation and entrepreneur groups are also taking part in economic and trade talks which are due to generate a number of cooperation agreements. 

CRI's Guan Chao has more.

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Chinese new energy vehicle maker BYD recently held a completion ceremony for the third phase of its North American plant in California. 

The new electric bus plant covers an area of 41-thousand square meters. 

BYD is the first Chinese company to produce electric buses in the US.

BYD's public relations manager Li Wei says the company has invested 230-million US dollars in the US electric bus market since 2013, accounting for over 80-percent of the market share.

"The products of BYD's plant, including those promoted in the US market, are all new-energy products. They are beneficial to local environments, people's health, and the next generation's well-being. 95-percent of the employees in the US are locals. So far, we've hired over 800 employees to work at our plant in the town of Lancaster in California. We plan to create a thousand more jobs in the future."

Economic and trade cooperation is high on US President Donald Trump's agenda this week while he visits Beijing.

Li Wei with BYD says their company expects the two sides will deepen cooperation in new energy transportation.

"I think the new energy transportation sector is an area ripe for cooperation. Before BYD entered the US market, new energy buses had already been promoted in the Chinese market for seven years. We've gained a lot of experience in operations and maintenance, which makes our products reliable. Our products are becoming popular in the US because they fill in a local technical blank."

Donald Trump is being accompanied by a large delegation of business representatives during this visit to China.

Like he did in Japan, Trump is expected to press for a narrowing of the China-US trade gap.

This is likely to include a push by Trump to try to get Beijing to free up additional areas of the Chinese economy for US investment.

But at the same time, China's Ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, suggested recently that if the US can ease its restriction on hi-tech products into China's private sector, US exports to China would likely be substantially increased. 

For CRI, this is Guan Chao.