China's accession into the world trade body is a strategic choice the government has to face in the wake of economic globalization, and this will pose a historic opportunity for the country's reform and opening-up, according to deputies attending 3rd Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC).

Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will bring China an ever-improved external environment to the best advantage of its reform and opening-up objectives and to serve its national interests, said Pi Qiansheng, a NPC deputy from the city of Tianjin adjacent to Beijing during a panel discussion here this afternoon.

"As a country with increasing openness, China should not give up the right to participate in formulating 'game rules'," Pi said, adding that it is the country's duty and obligation to have its own interests as well as interests of other developing countries reflected in the WTO rules.

China should take the initiative to involve itself in economic globalization, beef up its industrial restructuring and increase its people's market competitiveness, he noted.

Entering into the WTO, China will open wider still to the outside world, abide by internationally accepted regulations, and benefit from open markets of other countries, said Prof. Yu Yongning at the Beijing Science and Technology University.

Meanwhile, Mao Daru, president of the Agricultural University of China, said he is looking forward to the bright prospect and chances to be endowed to China's agriculture after the entry into the WTO. "Accession will possibly affect agricultural production in some areas. On the whole, however, he added, it will offer the country's agricultural sector better opportunities, as proven by WTO member nations like India, Indonesia and other developing countries," he said.

NPC deputies from the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR),too, care for to the motherland's entry. Prof. Ieong Wan Chong of the University of Macao cited China's expected entry into the WTO as a milestone on its way to economic globalization, which will beof help to China and fill it with an increased growth impetus in the new century.