China's Early WTO Accession to Benefit All Parties, OfficialChina's early accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in line with China's interests as well as the common interests of the WTO members, said a Chinese official in Geneva Friday, December 8."At present, every walk of life in China is making preparations for the WTO accession in an effort to welcome the new stage of China's opening up to the outside world," said China's chief trade negotiator Long Yongtu at the 14th session of the Working Parting on China's Accession to the WTO. As the focus of the preparations, Long said, China is revising and amending relevant laws, regulations and rules to meet the WTO requirements. "This process is being accelerated," he added. "China is not only accelerating the revision of its laws, but also putting more emphasis on the enforcement of laws," he said. For instance, Long said, the 12-page plan on the intellectual property protection worked out at the 14th session will ensure the comprehensive implementation of relevant laws and regulations consistent with international practices in China, which will create important conditions for further improving China's investment environment and strengthening China's cooperation with all countries in the world in the field of high and new technology. "I believe that through these efforts, more and more WTO members have confidence on China's sincerity and ability of implementing its WTO commitment," he said. Talking about the results of the current meeting, the head of the Chinese delegation said that he agreed to the assessment on the meeting by Chairman Paul Henri Ravier that further substantive progress had been made on some outstanding issues. Based on the momentum at the multilateral level brought about by the significant progress achieved at the last session in November, further important headway has been made on non-tariff measures, industrial policy, licensing procedures and transparency in services and the texts for multilateral discussions have been formed, according to Long. The 15th session will convene on January 10-17, 2001 at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. |
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