WTO Chief Says China is a Responsible Member

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 05, 2002

WTO Chief Says China is a Responsible Member

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Although the obligations on China are very tough, the Chinese government is doing well in fulfillingits commitments, which were made when the country joined the WorldTrade Organization (WTO) last December, WTO Director-General Mike Moore told Xinhua in an interview at WTO headquarters in Geneva on Friday.

Moore, who is going to leave the office at the end of August after his three-year term, said China is a responsible member and is playing a constructive role in the new round of multilateral trade talks.

"I am satisfied that China doesn't say, 'We have so many problems to solve and agreements to implement. Let's not talk about the Doha Agenda for the moment, Give us four or five years to absorb this, then let's talk about the Round'," Moore said, adding that China is doing both things at the same time.

He said he can't mention areas that China hasn't done enough inline with its free-trade promises. "Membership is understanding and I am inspired when I learned that some 6,000 individual books on WTO have been published in China."

Since China became a full member of WTO last December, the Chinese government has made a great effort to educate its people on the knowledge of the World Trade Organization and its trading rules, he noted.

Moore mentioned that the growth China had in the past ten yearshas pulled millions of people out of poverty. If the same growth were transferred to poor areas in the world, "how many more peoplewould have led a better life, how many more children would not have died and how much a better world it would be," he said.

On the "Doha Development Agenda," Moore said the ongoing talks are going very well and are better than predicted. "We have taken the commitment to capacity building. Within a month (since Doha), we had an increased budget for 2002, (within) three months we had the Doha Development Fund," Moore said.

"We have set up new systems and structures to do this which have never been done before. We have committees, timetables, deadlines and personalities in place," he added.

But he also warned that the work is urgent. "It is urgent because there are just 13 months until the 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico. It is urgent because Ministers have set a deadline of January 2005 for completing the round."

He emphasized that this is not a three-year round because members have already spent four years on it and the issues are notnew to other WTO members.

Moore pointed out that political will poses the major barrier to the completion of the new round of talks. "Political will is like a nightmare. You know how difficult it is to make 144 membersof different levels of development to reach consensus."

Meanwhile, he admitted that he is "biased about the developing countries," saying that he had always been biased, since he is a social democrat and accustomed to it.

The new Director-General, Dr. Supachai Panichpakdi from Thailand will succeed Moore on Sept. 1.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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