BEIJING — China and the United States have basically completed text negotiation on bilateral investment treaty (BIT), Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said in Beijing on March 7.

Gao made the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing annual parliamentary session.

The China-US negotiation is advancing toward a period of exchanging the negative lists on which foreign investments are restricted by host countries.

Given the US and China, the world’s biggest and second biggest economies, have different development levels, national conditions and growth modes, the negative lists exchange would be a challenge to each side.

Despite the challenge, the two sides have maintained close communications and interactions, Gao said.

The completion of negotiation on and the signing of the China-US BIT will have significant implications for global investment rules, Gao said.

With regard to the BIT negotiation with Europe, Gao said, China just received the negotiation text authorized by the new European Union (EU) leadership.

The Chinese side is translating, evaluating and studying the EU negotiation text and is preparing for submitting such a text to the EU.