BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- China's Minister of Commerce, Bo Xilai, on Tuesday denied intellectual property rights (IPR) protection was the main factor in the trade imbalance with the United States.

    Bo was responding to a question on whether China's efforts on IPR protection would decrease the U.S. trade deficit with China.

    He said it was exaggerating to say that China's insufficient IPR protection had greatly affected U.S. interests in bilateral trade.

    He understood the assumption of some Americans that they would earn bigger profits in China if IPR protection was improved.

    "Yet with a full consideration of bilateral trade between the two countries, such an assumption does not stand up," Bo said.

    Recent years had seen a dramatic drop in U.S. exports of new hi-tech products to China, resulting in a dwindling of the U.S. share of China's hi-tech imports.

    This meant the proportion of products involving IPR in U.S. exports to China was low, Bo said, noting that U.S. export restrictions on new hi-tech products had affected the trade balance.

    He said China's exports last year totaled 760 billion U.S. dollars, 58 percent of which were manufactured by foreign-owned companies in China.

    China's actual trade surplus stood at 20 billion to 30 billion dollars last year, excluding foreign-owned companies' exports from the country's overall 100-billion-dollar trade surplus, he said.

    This indicated that the irrational trade structure and weak competitive capacity of China's companies were the major factors affecting the Sino-U.S. trade balance rather than IPR protection, Bo said.

    The criticism of China's IPR protection was a subjective assumption, he said, adding that China would nevertheless press on with IPR protection and endeavor to fulfill its international responsibilities. Enditem