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China's Accessin to the WTO Proceed
China's accession to the World Trade Organization seemed to be able to proceed even without an immediate written bilateral agreement with Mexico, the last major trading partner that has not sealed a WTO deal with Beijing, according to chinadaily.com.cn.
Mexico has promised not to hold objection to China's entry to the influential global trade club even if it fails to ink a bilateral agreement with China after China completes multilateral talks in Geneva, Long Yongtu, chief WTO negotiator, said in an interview on November 17.
Reporting on the latest development of bilateral talks on the margins of the APEC summit in Brunei, Long said he believed that WTO talks with Mexico will not affect China's progress to the Geneva-based trade body.
Both sides have agreed to continue their talks on anti-dumping duties to pave the way for the bilateral agreement.
In April 1993, Mexico carried out anti-dumping investigations on 10 categories of more than 4,000 tariff codes of Chinese export products and levied 16 per cent to 1,105 per cent anti-dumping duties on them.
So far, over 1,000 tariff codes of products are still on the Mexican anti-dumping list, according to Long, noting the action goes against the basic principles of the WTO.
The Mexican side said it needed a transitional period to smooth away the difficulties facing its domestic businesses.
In consideration of the fact, China had agreed that Mexico's anti-dumping arrangement, which violates the WTO rules, could be phased out in a gradual fashion, Long said.
Mexico, a friendly developing country, has rendered great help to China's quest to the WTO, Long said.
The Latin-American country has consented to continue talks with China in relation to the WTO agreement until an agreement is clinched, he said.
Asked if the pending Mexican government reshuffle will affect the talk momentum, Long said that since there were very few problems left unresolved, and most of the negotiating representatives will remain unchanged, the negotiation process will go on to make headway.
Two-way trade between China and Mexico rocketed by 101.6 per cent to US$1.31 billion in the first nine months of this year, according to statistics from the General Administration of Customs.
Talks with the US
Also on Friday morning, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation Shi Guangsheng, said China had scored "major progress'' and gained common grounds on many issues in its separate talks with the United States on some articles of its draft "multilateral accession protocol."
China has offered to discuss with major WTO members -- previously it had talked with the European Union -- on the draft protocol so as to pace up its talks with the WTO working party in Geneva, according to Shi.
However, some disparities remained to be solved. The key points that need further discussion is about the duties and rights of developing countries as stated in the draft protocol, he said.
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