The president of the US-China Business Council says Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations will be the top priority of the upcoming US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

US-China Business Council President John Frisbie says he believes the negotiations for the investment treaty will be an important topic between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his counterpart Barack Obama.

"More specifically, I think the bilateral investment treaty is the top priority. For the reasons that I said, there is a negotiating processed in Beijing two weeks ago from now, there is another negotiation session will take here in Washington before President Xi is here."

President Xi Jinping will make his first official state visit to the United States later this month.

Insiders believe the treaty negotiation will not only greatly spur investment potential between the two countries, but also be beneficial to US manufacturing and to China's structural reform. In June, the 19th round of negotiations saw the first exchange of negative lists, or sectors excluded from the treaty, marking new progress at the talks.

Frisbie says China and the US are going to be the main global growth drivers for years to come. He emphasizes that the Chinese market is important to US companies.

"The important is that China remains the growth drivers for American companies in spite of the economic slowdown in China. By my calculation, China is about 400 billion dollars market for American companies."

The US-China Business Council is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of over 200 American companies that do business with China.

A previous report by this council showed that China is still an important export destination of US products amid China's economic slowdown. Export volume to China reached 120 billion US dollars last year, right after Canada and Mexico.