China and the United States should talk often to understand each other's strengths and differences and to cooperate better in the future, Ellen Kullman, the newly elected chair of the US-China Business Council, said on Friday.
Kullman made the statements several hours before a meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama in California.
"When you have countries with large economies, it is important for leaders to speak often for a sustainable development," said Kullman during the 2013 Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu, Sichuan province. "The more our leaders can sit and discuss, the more powerful the combination of China and the US can be in the world."
Although she said it's still too early to predict on which specific sectors China and the US can cooperate further in the following years, she told China Daily that a road map will be formed by mid-July and it will show us how the two countries can continue to work together on trade, intellectual property and commercial arrangement issues.
"We are going to learn a lot between now and the middle of July because a lot of work has to be done by the US and Chinese sides around areas such as agriculture, energy, technology, innovation and energy efficiency," she said.
President Xi is expected to meet Obama on Friday evening and talks will be held on Saturday morning. The topics may involve trade and economic cooperation, cyber security and nuclear issues.
"There are a lot of different areas that China and the US are going to have conversations on and come up with agreements, although it's hard to predict what exactly the issues are going to be," said Kullman. "From a business perspective, when I talked with my counterparts in China, we found there are many opportunities in China for us and, meanwhile, many opportunities in the US for Chinese companies."
She said some areas such as trade policies and intellectual property protection issues need more efforts to have clearer rules.
As chair and chief executive officer of global chemical company DuPont, Kullman was elected chair of the US-China Business Council on June 6.
She said she looks forward to advocating effective and sensible approaches to further promote and strengthen US-China commercial ties.
The council estimates that China represents at least a $250 billion market for American companies, when you add up exports to China and sales by companies with operations in the country, Kullman said.
Kullman - the leader of an international chemical company with annual revenues of nearly $35 billion - said that science really can make a difference for sustainable development and a better world.
Agricultural sciences, biosciences and material sciences are the three strength areas of DuPont that are well integrated across the company.
With over 40 fully owned or joint venture entities and 7,000 employees in the Chinese mainland, DuPont offers technology, products and services to industries including agriculture, food and nutrition, electronics and transportation.
In terms of the talent shortage issues in the Chinese job market, Kullman said up to 10 percent of DuPont's employees in China are engineers and skilled staff.
"We have training programs for them to ensure they have the skills that the company requires," she said. "However, it's not an issue for only China. It is a global issue," she said.
