China and WTO: Vice Minister: China has fully fulfilled its WTO accession commitments
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The Commerce Ministry held a press briefing on Wednesday on the World Trade Organization's (WTO) eighth trade policy review of China, which was held from Oct. 20 to Oct. 22. Senior officials from the ministry answered questions on China's fulfillment of its accession commitments and obligations and WTO reforms. Our reporter Wang Hui has more.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO. Since 2001, China has undergone nine transitional reviews and eight trade policy reviews. This time, representatives from 65 WTO members took the floor during the review. Being a major trading partner of over 120 economies, China faced more than 2500 questions from 39 members, the largest number of questions among members. China's Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen responded to questions about China's accession commitments at the conference.

WANG SHOUWEN Vice Commerce Minister "If you check the timeline, you will see that we have completely fulfilled our obligations and commitments. This has been confirmed by several WTO members and a couple of former secretary-generals."

According to Wang, China has redirected its efforts in three main areas, such as, opening up its market, adopting and following the WTO rules and regulations.

WANG SHOUWEN Vice Commerce Minister "In order to make China's rules, regulations and policies to fit the WTO ones, right after joining the organization, we worked on more than 2,000 laws, regulations, and policies at the central government level, and over 190,000 ones at the local government level."

When it comes to WTO reforms, Beijing has always been an active and constructive participant. Beijing believes that reforms should help safeguard free trade and multilateralism, while narrowing the development gap among members. The CGTN reporter raised a question about subsidies and reforms.

WANG HUI Beijing "Does Beijing back the WTO on the need to have negotiations for subsidies under its reform framework?"

YAN DONG Senior Official Commerce Ministry "China is open to the idea of negotiations on subsidies under the WTO framework. We feel that there should be discussions about subsidies on agriculture and industries at the same time, to ensure that there will be fair competition in these two key sectors. We should also consider strictly enforcing the countervailing and anti-subsidy measures so that trade remedy measures are not abused. Members should also discuss the recovery of non-actionable subsidies."

As far as the transparency of the subsidy policies in China are concerned, Yan says the WTO requires its members to hand in reports on this matter periodically. China is one of the countries that has fulfilled its obligations diligently. Wang Hui, CGTN, Beijing.