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China's WTO Formal Meeting Postponed to September 17
In the afternoon of September 12 when the informal meeting of China's WTO Working Party was just held for 20 minutes and did not give any particular discussion, Pierre-Louise Girard, chairman of the WTO Working Party on China announced: the meeting schedule has been changed and the informal meeting will be continued on September 13, and 14, but the decisive one will be put back to next week.
China Taipei's formal meeting will also be put off till China's formal meeting is concluded. Girard said to reporters that you should understand why.
Due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, the atmosphere in the World Trade Organization Headquarters looked very heavy. China's chief negotiator Long Yongtu extended his condolences to the relatives of the dead and expressed deep sympathy and solicitude to the US representatives for it. According to informed resources, for the safety reason, the US trade representative should have stayed in hotel, but he still went to the WTO headquarters. In the morning of September 12, when People's Daily reporter asked him to say something about China's WTO process, he declined it politely, and said that all their minds were on New York and Washington. When asked whether China could pass the remaining several law regulations for WTO entry, he said that it was hard for him to give any answer at the moment and instead he said you could ask the secretariat about it.
Sources said that this grave event could cast no shadows on the US delegation, it would also bring some influence on China's working party. When reporter came across Mr. Girard at the WTO headquarters and hoped that he could give some comments on China's WTO talks, he said that he did not have a single minute free to talk about it.
WTO Director of Information and Media Relations Keith Rockwell gave an explanation some time later that there were still some concrete problems on re-insurance and pricing control problems needed to be solved and it required more time to deal with them.
By PD Online staff member Li Yan
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