TRADE: China Makes Strides toward WTO Membership

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 4 2001 (IPS) - China achieved a breakthrough towards its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) during a week of multilateral negotiations, which ended Wednesday.

Chairman of the Working Party on the Accession of China, Pierre- Louis Girard, of Switzerland, said the talks were “very productive, allowing us to reach substantial and positive conclusions on a large number of the outstanding issues.”

WTO authorities hope to speed up negotiations so that China’s admission into the multilateral trade body can be approved during its Fourth Ministerial Conference, to meet in Doha, Qatar, this November.

Mike Moore, WTO director-general, applauded the advances made over the last week, saying they improved the chances that a final decision would be made in Doha.

Girard convened another meeting of the working party for July 16. If further deliberations are necessary, they will take place in September immediately after the WTO’s summer recess.

China’s assistant minister for Trade, Long Yongtu, shared the upbeat attitude of Moore and Girard, though stressed that now is not the time for celebrations because there is still much work ahead.

The working group on China’s accession must finish drawing up a draft report and protocol, two documents that will be submitted to the WTO General Council or the Ministerial Conference for approval.

According to WTO procedure, the parliament of the country seeking admission must ratify the entry package. China’s membership would enter into force 30 days afterwards.

As of that moment, China would add nearly one quarter of the global population to the multilateral trade system.

Long observed that during the admission talks, which spread over the last 15 years, China had proven to the world that it is firmly implementing a national policy of reforms and market openings.

However, the working group convened a last-minute session this week on one of the stickier points in the negotiations: agriculture.

China has always maintained that should be considered a developing country, and in that sense seeks the benefits afforded such countries by the WTO agricultural accord, including permission to grant subsidies for 10 percent of that sector’s production.

But the United States claims that China is included in the category of industrialised countries, which must limit their farm subsidies to just five percent of agricultural output.

A final hour bilateral treaty between Washington and Beijing established that China would set a ceiling of 8.5 percent for its subsidised farm production, dissipating the last of the storm clouds hovering over the talks.

In addition to certain points related to services and tariff contingencies that have delayed the multilateral agreement under discussion by the working party, China must also finalise its bilateral talks with Mexico, the only country with which it has not signed a protocol of understanding.

Mexican trade officials have made it clear that they will not stand in the way of a global treaty, though they intend to continue bilateral negotiations.

Long announced Wednesday that his country is preparing to step up contacts with Mexico in order to clear away the last remaining obstacles.