Vice-Premier Wu Yi arrives in the US for a seven-day visit today, prompting hopes from both sides for a breakthrough over trade disputes.
Ms Wu, the most senior Beijing official to visit the US this year, will co-chair a bilateral trade committee with US Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans and Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in Washington tomorrow, according to Xinhua.
It will be the highest-level meeting of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in a decade. The commission was set up in 1983 as a channel for consultation on trade and commerce between the nations. The sitting would focus on trade disputes for the first time in two years, Xinhua said.
While economic and trade issues are expected to top her agenda, Ms Wu will also meet US leaders and other senior government officials a week after US Vice-President Dick Cheney visited the mainland.
The US government has high hopes of Ms Wu's trip to Washington, with Mr Cheney saying he expected to see results this time as both sides had voiced a readiness to solve trade disputes.
'We are really hopeful the meeting will truly produce concrete results,' US Under-Secretary of Commerce Grant Aldonas was quoted by Xinhua as saying.