The Chinese government expressed deep regret about the US decision to continually put the country on its "priority watch list" due to insufficient efforts in intellectual property rights protection, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.

The United States put China on its "priority watch list" for the ninth year, "for which we express great regret", the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The office of the United States Trade Representative has grave concerns about misappropriation of trade secrets in China, and incremental progress on a few of China's many other significant IPR and market-access challenges, the agency said in its 2013 Special 301 Report, an annual assessment of IPR enforcement.