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Commerce Minister Chen Deming said Friday that China-US trade rose 17 percent year-on-year to reach $363 billion in the first ten months of the year.

The increase led to China and the United States becoming each other's second-largest trading partners, Chen said at a dinner held by the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham-China).

Trade between China and the United States will likely exceed $400 billion in 2011 and the figure will further increase in 2012 according to forecasts from the ministry and customs authorities, Chen said.

"Next year will be a difficult year (for global economy), and a year in which China and the United States should deepen cooperation and join hands in coping with the crisis," Chen told Chinese and American entrepreneurs who attended the banquet.

Chen said the growth rate of the world's second largest economy will stay above 9 percent this year.

China's GDP growth dropped to a two-year low of 9.1 percent in the third quarter of the year, down from 9.5 percent in the second quarter and 9.7 percent in the first quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

To boost bilateral trade, China will make efforts to increase imports from the United States while China hopes the United States to relax its restrictions on high-tech exports to China, Chen said.

While continuing efforts in promoting US investment in China, the country also expects the United States to create a fair and transparent environment for Chinese firms that intend to invest in the United States, Chen added.

He said the two countries should explore new cooperation opportunities in fields such as energy saving, environmental protection, information technology and biomedicine. The two countries should also strengthen cooperation in infrastructure construction.

Chen said China is willing to turn the US debt it holds into investment in the United States, which will help solve its employment problems.

In the first ten months of the year, the United States invested $2.57 billion in China, down 18.13 percent year-on-year. The decrease was 9 percentage points higher than in the first three quarters.

Chen also said he expects the consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, to slightly exceed 5 percent this year in China. The figure is above the government's target of 4 percent.

The country's CPI increased 5.5 percent year-on-year in October, easing from a 37-month high of 6.5 percent in July. Analysts expect the November figure, which is due to be released next week, to drop under 5 percent.

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