U.S., China sign deals, pledge trade cooperation

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and Chinese companies signed 32 business deals on Monday worth $10.6 billion, while top U.S. and Chinese officials said the two countries must cooperate on trade to help restore global growth.

"History tells us that openness and cooperation is all the more important amidst a crisis," Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said in a speech just before China Telecom signed contracts with Cisco, Microsoft, Dell and Emerson.

"Trade protectionism will not restore growth. On the contrary, it will exacerbate recession," Chen said.

China Mobile inked deals with HP, Alcatel-Lucent, Oracle, Emerson, Sun Microsystems and Cisco, while China Construction Bank signed with Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Cisco.

Specific details of the individual deals, which also included Ford and Amway with their Chinese counterparts, were not released.

But Chen said they showed China's "unequivocal" opposition to protectionism and how growth in the Chinese economy would help create jobs abroad.

China's persistent trade surplus with the United States hit a record $266.3 billion in 2008 and has been a source of tension between Beijing and Washington.

However, the global recession has hurt both countries' exports and increased the temptation for governments around the world to raise import barriers to protect local companies.

The size and importance of U.S.-China trade, which totaled $409 billion last year, means both companies have a stake in making sure it is "fair, sustainable and mutually beneficial," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement after meeting with Chen.

"Particularly during the current difficult global economic circumstance, both the United States and China have a tremendous stake in maintaining a vibrant, open, international trading system to revive and sustain economic growth," he said.

Kirk said he looked forward to working with Chen to finish the long-running Doha round of world trade talks and to tackle bilateral trade disputes through the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

Chen, who also met on Monday with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, said China's first quarter economic results were "better than expected" in a number of areas and preliminary trade data for the first 20 days of April showed the rate of China's export decline had slowed.

"All these suggest there are positive signs in the Chinese economy ... The steady development of China's economy will provide more business and job opportunities for other countries and help shore up confidence in the world economy," Chen said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer, editing by Eric Beech)