Washington, Feb 4 (DPA) US President Barack Obama Wednesday said he favoured free 'reciprocal' trade and would put pressure on China and other countries to open its domestic markets to competition.

'The approach that we're taking is to try to get much tougher about enforcement of existing rules, putting constant pressure on China and other countries to open up their markets in reciprocal ways,' Obama said during a conference in Washington with senators

from his own Democratic Party.

Obama also suggested countries like China were artificially keeping down their currencies to boost exports, indirectly weighing into a long-standing dispute between the two major powers.

'One of the challenges that we've got to address internationally is currency rates ... to make sure that our goods are not artificially inflated in price and their goods are (not) artificially deflated in price,' Obama said, though he did not specifically

mention China. 'That puts us at a huge competitive disadvantage.'

Obama said trade with China and the rest of Asia remained critical to the future growth of the US economy. Last week, Obama proposed doubling US exports within five years in a bid to revive the struggling labour market in the United States.

'I would not be in favour of revoking the trade relationships that we've established with China,' Obama said, responding to such a suggestion from Democratic Senator Arlen Specter. But he said: 'We've got to put our foot down and show that we're serious about

enforcement.'