WTO Access to Improve China's Economic Structure

Chinese and foreign experts attending a forum on Developing Countries & the World Trade Organization (WTO) believe that China's admission into the WTO will accelerate the adjustment of the country's economic structure.

Zhang Hanlin, executive vice chairman and secretary general of the WTO Research Institute, noted that the proportion of agriculture, manufacturing, and tertiary industries in China's gross domestic product (GDP) will be changed after China enters the WTO. Zhang, who is also a professor at Beijing's University of International Business and Economics, said that tertiary industry is replacing manufacturing as the criteria for judging a country's modernization.

In China, the proportion of tertiary industry accounts for 39 percent of the country's GDP, far below the world average of 61 percent, Zhang noted, adding that 38 percent of China's labor force is employed in tertiary industry, compared with 50 percent in some developed countries and 75 percent in the United States.

He called for a change in employment structure, and reform in the education and training sectors to prepare for the challenges brought about by WTO admission.

Charles Changming Yan, general manager of the Alumni Consulting Center of Cadavisa International Consulting Inc., a Canadian firm, called on Chinese enterprises to learn advanced management experience from abroad and establish a complete and rational management mechanism to prepare for the upcoming challenges.

He also urged Chinese enterprises to set their eyes not only on the domestic market, but also on the international market.

As a country with 870 million rural people, Yan added, China should stimulate the development of small towns to absorb the surplus rural labor force, and produce more value-added agricultural products.

By the end of 1999, China had 55,000 small towns, and some 10, 000 more small towns will be created to further enhance the development of the rural economy.

Wang Kangmao, a fellow with the National University of Singapore, called on the Chinese government to focus on the construction of high-tech industrial parks, to produce new goods, and commercialize scientific and technological achievements.

Special attention should be paid to upgrading the level of China's computer and manufacturing industries, he stressed.

The forum was held during the ongoing China International High-Tech Industries Week which opened in Beijing on Monday.



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