China is making progress in the fight against pirated goods but more work needs to be done to curb an illegal industry worth up to $24 billion a year, US Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans said.
Mr Evans discussed the lack of intellectual property rights in the Asian economic powerhouse in meetings with Chinese officials last week.
"I was very impressed that (the Chinese government) had called together 31 ministries and told them that (it) expected them to develop complete programs to deal with this issue," Mr Evans told Reuters in an interview in the Mexican city of Guadalajara.
But he added: "It is still a very serious problem and it is a serious problem around the world and I am pleased with the progress to date but much more needs to be done."
China's own State Council, or cabinet, has estimated the market value of counterfeit goods in China at about $19 billion to $24 billion annually.
Mr Evans said China had launched a national education campaign to deal with piracy and had promised to crack down through the courts.
Washington has complained that China needs to do more against piracy at the provincial and city levels. The bogus trade affects a wide range of US products, including films, music, publishing, software, pharmaceuticals, information technology and automotive parts. Pirated DVDs of the latest Hollywood blockbusters sell for about $1.
The European Union expressed concern last week about the scale of the piracy of goods in world trade, naming China, Russia and Ukraine among the key offenders.
Mr Evans, attending a business meeting in Mexico, said Beijing was aware it needed to move towards a flexible exchange rate, as sought by the United States.
"What they have said is 'yes', they know that they have to move toward a flexible exchange rate. They just haven't laid out a specific timetable on that," Mr Evans said.
China's close but sometimes thorny trade relationship with Washington has been politicized ahead of US elections in November.
US manufacturers and some law-makers have argued that Beijing's yuan currency, virtually pegged at around 8.28 per dollar, is making Chinese exports artificially cheap at the cost of US jobs.