I would first like to express appreciation on behalf of the U.S. government for your incredible efforts to host this second edition of the re-imagined JCCT in Guangzhou, where Vice Premier Wang played such an important role as Party Secretary of Guangdong Province from 2007 to 2012.

Like last year in Chicago, I thought that yesterday's cooperative events on corporate governance, subnational cooperation, healthcare, and agriculture were wonderful and welcome examples of the vast opportunities presented by deeper commercial cooperation between the United States and China.

In particular, I must tell you that the tour of the Chen Family Academy, the setting for our CEO round table, the boat cruise of the Pearl River were all stunning. I understand the pride you have in Guangdong, and I thank you for your warmth and hospitality.

Now that we have replicated last year’s cooperative success, the pressure is on us during this plenary to replicate last year's policy success by making meaningful progress on key concerns to our business communities.

Our trade relationship is undoubtedly strong and growing. The latest trade statistics indicate China is on the cusp of becoming our largest trading partner for the first time ever. One business association recently reported that their members overwhelmingly report strong returns on their business operations in China, even as growth has calmed to more sustainable levels.

But with the growth in our economic relationship in recent years, we have seen real complications and serious concerns for our businesses that we have raised during the working level negotiations and planning meetings in advance of today’s JCCT plenary.

On a number of these issues -- our early harvests -- we have made good progress. For instance, we have reached strong outcomes already on trade secrets, but we have some work before us today on truly critical issues like pharmaceuticals and medical device metrics. I understand that we reached agreement in principle on all of our early harvest issues except two of ours and one of yours, where we need to finish language. We need to instruct our teams to finish up so we can celebrate 100 percent completion of early harvest issues.

One area, Mr. Vice Premier, where we still have considerable work to get done this morning is on ag and biotech approvals. I know that you and Secretary Vilsack discussed our lack of progress in this area this morning. I hope we can get our teams to make progress on this now.

With clear direction from us, I am confident we can make strong progress on these matters in the hours ahead, and hopefully, we will both be able to leave Guangzhou satisfied that the JCCT has, once again, achieved real, meaningful, and concrete outcomes for our business communities.

Thank you again, Mr Vice Premier, for your hospitality and friendship, and I look forward to making further progress during the course of today.