On a side-trip during a two-stay in the remote western industrial city of Chengdu, Snow brought this town of 36,000 people its biggest day in the limelight since, well, ever.

Hundreds turned out to gawp as Snow's delegation inspected sides of pork, live catfish and dried seaweed in the central market before visiting the offices of a rural credit union which extends loans to farmers.

The credit union building, standing on a dirt road freshly paved for the occasion, was emblazoned with a red and gold sign welcoming Snow. But last week, according to US officials, the sign read: "Stop Money Laundering!"

The tour highlighted another of the bugbears for the US administration in its trade exchanges with China -- rampant copyright abuse.

An electronics store inspected by Snow was doing a brisk trade in the televisions, refrigerators, DVD players and washing machines that are fast becoming staples of life for China's newly affluent consumers.

"Oh look, a Philips!" Snow said on seeing one of the more desirable DVD players next to cheaper Chinese brands such as Konka and Changhong. But closer inspection revealed the familiar typeset of the European electronics giant to read "Phluips".

The Treasury chief, handling tubes of Crest toothpaste and a box of Tide detergent, also remarked sceptically: "You think it's the real thing?"

Dodgy or not, the mere availability of consumer electronics in places as far-flung as Mulan is testament to how far China has come in two decades of reforms and breakneck economic growth.

Snow emphasised that that growth could be better yet, warming to one of the themes for his week-long visit to China, which started in Shanghai Tuesday and climaxes in meetings with Chinese leaders and a gathering of the Group of 20 nations this weekend near Beijing.

"Developing a stronger consumer credit system in China will be important in helping to facilitate the further development of the country," he told reporters, stressing that China's "extraordinarily high" savings rate must be put to more productive use.

The United States hopes that if Chinese citizens can find ways of spending more of their savings, through more widespread use of credit cards for instance, China will bolster its domestic consumption and rely less on export growth to power its economy.

That could, in theory, dent the enormous US trade deficit with China and ease some of the protectionist pressure that is mounting on Snow from members of Congress eager to see China taken down a notch or two.

Likewise, Snow argued, greater currency flexibility from China might switch the focus from export-led growth by encouraging development at home.

"Financial market modernisation is important for a variety of reasons: it will help sustain and even accelerate growth (through) better use of capital," he said.

"An unacceptably high non-performing loans ratio indicates you are putting capital in the wrong hands," he added after visiting the credit union building.

Snow is expected to press Chinese leaders for reforms on a broad range of fronts, including currency regime change, and to allow greater participation for Western banks in the country's tightly regulated financial system.

The former railroad executive remarked that in two decades of visiting China, he had noticed how the country's top-class hotels had developed to rival the best in the world after foreign managers were brought in by the big chains.

"We say, let's do the same with the financial sector."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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