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Moore Expects China to Join WTO This Year
World Trade Organization director general Mike Moore said in Paris on Tuesday he expects China to join the WTO by the end of the year even if there are last-minute hitches in the negotiations.
"It is a highly complicated matter and it is not an easy matter," as the more than 130 WTO members were now each going through China's proposed accession offer line by line, Moore told journalists.
But he said he thought that "by the end of this year" China should be admitted, even if problems arise along the way as there was room in the schedule for some hitches.
Talks on the protocol in Geneva last week, for example, showed that "progress is being made," Moore said on the sidelines of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ministerial meeting in Paris.
On Friday the top Chinese negotiator on WTO entry, Long Yongtu, had warned WTO members against raising "unrealistic" last-minute obstacles to the accession.
He said a few WTO members had either asked China to undertake obligations exceeding WTO rules or sought to deprive China of some rights under WTO rules.
Yongtu did not identify the countries causing problems, but China has still not signed market access agreements with Switzerland, Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala.
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