China-ASEAN Cooperation Brings No Harm to WTO Members: Long Yongtu

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 17, 2002

China-ASEAN Cooperation Brings No Harm to WTO Members: Long Yongtu

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The China-ASEAN economic cooperation will form no barrier to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and bring no harm to any WTO members, Long Yongtu, vice minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, said at the Fourth Conference of World Trade Promotion Organizations, which opened in Beijing Thursday morning.

And the establishment of the China-ASEAN free trade area is bound to be a win-win situation to further the interests of both sides.

"Many countries have launched regional trade cooperation, such as the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), why not China and ASEAN?" Long said.

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is expected to grow into one most densely populated and the world's largest regional trade block composed of developing nations in terms of its economic scale.

The integration will not only boost common economic development of the two sides, but will also help expand trade and cooperation and sharp the competitive edge of China and the ASEAN nations.

China and the ASEAN nations will benefit more from economic globalization and regional economic integration after the opening of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area.

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will then be run with a population of some 1.7 billion consumers to yield two trillion US dollars of GDP and a trade value near 1.2 trillion US dollars.

A senior WTO official confessed that the WTO will give strong backing to the regional trade agreements because such cooperation will help improve the system of WTO and promote the liberalization of trade among regional countries. The regional trade agreements and WTO agreements, mutually complementary, will jointly boost a more widening world market, he said.

By PD Online Staff Huang Ying

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