China hopes to achieve substantial results from negotiations with the U.S. over a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) before August, but it is still hard for both sides to reach a consensus on the negative list issue, former Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). He is concerned that an agreement will not be reached before the U.S. presidential elections enter the final phase and new uncertainties will surface. China and the U.S. started the BIT negotiations in 2008, and there have been 24 rounds of talks. In 2013, the two sides reached a major breakthrough when they began discussing each other’s negative list, which identifies all the areas that are not open to investors. Premier Li Keqiang said that the two sides are making efforts to speed up the BIT talks and that China will gradually increase market access for U.S. investors, adding that the process should be mutual. China became the largest trading partner of the U.S. in 2015 with bilateral trade reaching USD560 billion, so a treaty between the two countries would have a major impact on the world economy, according to Chen Deming. “From the Chinese perspective, the country’s investors will gain a higher degree of confidence as the BIT enhances their ability to control things,” Reuben Jeffery III, former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, said. Chen added that a major problem for Chinese investments in the U.S. is how the U.S. views China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs). In several cases, the U.S. government has barred Chinese companies from entering its market for allegedly having a Chinese government background. Chen also noted that national security has been excluded from the talks, the Global Times reports.