WTO Effort Reaches New HeightsThe working party on the Accession of China to the WTO has made progress on a revised draft protocol regarding China's membership, Chairman Pierre-louis Girard said in Geneva on Thursday.'Positions were narrowed significantly on a number of points, with emerging consensus developing in some important areas,'' Girard said in his summing up at the end of the week-long working party meeting. "With certain additional clarifications, it should be possible to (put on the) table a further draft of the protocol for consideration in the next round of working party discussions,'' the Swiss ambassador said. He described the current session of the working party as"productive and business-like.'' In a statement at Thursday's meeting, China's Vice Minister for Foreign Trade Long Yongtu said China's WTO accession negotiations are making steady progress regarding trade relations with other countries. In other WTO developments, China signed bilateral agreements with Ecuador and Guatemala this week and has concluded negotiations with Costa Rica, shortening the list of negotiating partners to WTO members Mexico and Switzerland. Long expressed hope that all bilateral WTO negotiations would end soon. During the current session, China advanced in drafting multilateral legal documents for accession. "China and working party members have reached consensus on many provisions of the protocol, and the drafting of the working party report has also entered into the stage of substantive discussions,'' said Long. The head of the Chinese delegation said the delegation is looking forward to more progress in the next session of the working party, which is scheduled in mid-September. |
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