U.S. expects legal software sales to rise in China

The U.S. can expect greater legal software sales in China, the top U.S. trade official said Wednesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in Washington on Wednesday that he expects China to take measurable steps toward making that happen as two days of high-level wide-ranging trade talks ended.

From January to October of 2010, the U.S. had a trade deficit of $226 billion dollars with China, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

We expect to see concrete and measurable results, including the increased purchase and use of legal software, steps to eradicate the piracy of electronic journals, more effective rules for addressing Internet piracy, and a crackdown on landlords who rent space to counterfeiters in China, Kirk said.

China's intellectual property rights commitments build on China's 'Special Campaign' against counterfeiting and piracy, Kirk said.

The gathering on Tuesday and Wednesday - known as the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade - is the most important bilateral dialogue for resolving trade and investment issues between the two nations.

The three co-chairs of the group are Kirk, U.S. Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke and China's Vice Premier Wang Quishan.

China agreed at meetings in the industrial city of Hangzhou last year that it would reopen its market to U.S. pork and to remove barriers for American firms to China's growing clean energy market.

Also in Tuesday's talks, the U.S. Commerce Department said China agreed it would not discriminate in government procurement based on origin of intellectual property or to use discriminatory methods to select industrial equipment

China's non-discrimination agreement is a valuable outcome for U.S. businesses concerned they would be unfairly blocked from the market, Locke said.

Progress was also made in China's negotiations to join an international legally binding agreement on government purchases.

China will submit a robust second revised document to the WTO in 2011 to join the group's Government Procurement Agreement. China has been listed as an observer at the committee since 2002.

According to the WTO, government procurement represents between 10 and 15 percent of a developed country's GDP.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who was also present at the talks, said that technical talks will resume as soon as possible with the goal or reopening China's market to U.S. beef exporters in 2011.

The structure on the commission includes groups for discussing trade and investment issues, business development and industrial cooperation, and commercial law, in addition to a side dialogue on export controls.