SEATTLE—The Chinese government is committed to addressing U.S. concerns over market access and intellectual property, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. and Chinese business leaders Wednesday in the first of a series of meetings designed to highlight the benefits of commercial relations.

China would also maintain "relatively high" growth for a long time, creating huge opportunities for U.S. technology and other companies, Mr. Xi told 30 top U.S. and Chinese chief executives at a roundtable in Seattle co-organized by the Paulson Institute.

"As our business ties deepen it is only natural to see frictions and differences of one kind or another," Mr. Xi said in a speech after listening to comments from some of the chief executives for about half an hour.

"However, problems are always outnumbered by solutions," he said. "Actually, some of the issues raised by the U.S., we want to address through reform. We'll look into these issues and speedily try to address as many as possible."

He added that Chinese companies wanted the U.S. to ease restrictions on civilian high-tech exports to China and to lower barriers to Chinese investment in the U.S. "We count on the U.S. business community to play a positive role and make this a reality," Mr. Xi said.

Among the 15 U.S. chief executives in attendance were Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corp., Tim Cook of Apple Inc., Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. and John Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc., an indication of the emphasis China is placing on the technology industry during the visit.

The 15 Chinese executives included Jack Ma of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Pony Ma of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Robin Li of Baidu Inc.

China's tech industry was growing notably faster than the average in the industrial sector and its 600 million Internet users and 1.2 billion mobile phone users presented business opportunities for companies such as Amazon, Cisco and Apple, Mr. Xi said.

"China's economic development will create and sustain an elastic demand for technology capital and products of other countries," Mr. Xi said.

Mr. Xi's visit comes at a time of mounting tension with the U.S. over issues including alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. companies and government offices, and China's commitment to ease restrictions on U.S. investment.

The Obama administration has been urging U.S. technology and other companies to be more vocal about the problems they are facing in China.

China, however, has been using the meetings with business leaders in Seattle to highlight the positive aspects of commercial ties, while playing down tensions in other areas ahead of Mr. Xi's summit with President Obama on Friday.

"China will open up still wider to the outside world. Without reform there will be no driving force. Without opening up there will be no progress," Mr. Xi said.

"We are working to build a new open economic system and promoting reform of the foreign investment management system and significantly removing restrictions on market access for foreign investment."

China wanted more cooperation with the U.S. in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, environmental protection, finance, IT, and modern agricultural infrastructure, and supported large U.S. companies setting up regional headquarters in China, Mr. Xi said.

He said China also wanted investment from smaller U.S. companies and would "stand firm to protect" intellectual property rights.

"The newly established IPR courts are working smoothly. This means there will be much stronger IPR protection which will serve the interests of foreign businesses as well as Chinese companies."

Former U.S. Treasury secretary Hank Paulson introduced Mr. Xi and moderated the roundtable which was also attended by U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Liu He, Mr. Xi's top economic adviser.

Mr. Paulson said China and the U.S. both needed to carry out structural reforms to move their economies onto a more growth-conducive footing for the long term and to find ways to address issues such as commercial cybertheft and climate change.

"For U.S. companies pursuing foreign investments in China, they must better understand potential obstacles such as standards that might exclude U.S. products, challenges with intellectual property protection, or new regulations for technology and data-sharing," Mr. Paulson said.

"We also discussed challenges to doing business in the U.S. We need to find ways to encourage more job-creating investments from China. And we need to fix some of our own flawed policies and inefficiencies, especially through tax and fiscal reform."

Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com

 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 23, 2015 16:25 ET (20:25 GMT)

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