United States Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers leaves the mainland today with no progress on Beijing's accession to the World Trade Organisation, leaving it unlikely to happen this year.
On other subjects, he called on Beijing to work with Washington to address a growing trade imbalance.
Mr Summers arrived on Saturday and met Prime Minister Zhu Rongji for two hours in the western city of Lanzhou on Sunday, before leading the US side at the Sino-US joint economic committee. He made a speech at Qinghua university yesterday.
Neither side reported any progress on the WTO issue.
'Certainly, there are issues that need to be resolved,' Mr Summers said yesterday.
Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng, who co-chaired the committee, agreed with Mr Summers but said the mainland position on WTO had not changed, that it must be treated as a developing country, with a balance of rights and obligations in its accession.