Bloomberg: China's Market Worth $150 Billion to US Companies, Business Group Says

China’s market is worth $150 billion in annual sales to U.S. companies when exports and operations in China are added together, making it a top-10 market for American companies, a business group will testify today. “U.S. companies have experienced tremendous commercial success in China’s market, and the prospects for future growth are significant,” Erin Ennis, vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said in testimony prepared for a hearing to be held by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The business group’s heralding of success and opportunity in the Chinese market contrasts with complaints among lawmakers in Washington. China is the third-largest export market with $69.5 billion in U.S. sales in 2009. The sale of goods and services by U.S. multinational companies operating in the Asian nation has increased to $98.4 billion, more than a fourfold increase from 2000, said the Washington-based group, which represents U.S. companies with operations in China such as Citigroup Inc. and Caterpillar Inc.

The group says that some of the multinationals’ sales come from U.S.-exported components that are used in products sold in China, so $150 billion is its estimate of the net benefit to American companies. That total is half that of Chinese exports to the U.S. in 2009. No similar estimate of U.S. sales by Chinese companies that have invested in the U.S. was provided. Ennis will testify today at the USTR’s annual hearing on China’s compliance with commitments it made when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Also scheduled to testify are representatives of potato growers, software companies and steelmakers. While describing trade opportunities in China, Ennis also cites Chinese policies discriminating against American companies, including government-procurement rules that give preference to Chinese-made products and rules that harm American makers of solar and wind technology.