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Press
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Mr. Chairman,
The
18th Session of the Working Party on China is soon coming to an end.
Today is a memorable day of importance. It marks the final conclusion
of negotiations on China's WTO accession, and the Working Party that
has been established for 14 and half years will complete its
historical mission.
This
Session has adopted all the legal documents on China's accession
thanks to the joint efforts of the Working Party members. China will
soon become a WTO Member after necessary legal procedures. To achieve
this goal, we have made protracted and arduous efforts. Everybody
present today has good reason to be proud of our work, as we are part
of a historical event, an event which will bring a country with
one-fourth of the world population into the multilateral trading
system which takes the promotion of the world trade and economic
development as its major goal.
I
would like to, on behalf of the Chinese Government, to express our
sincere gratitude to the cooperative spirit of the Working Party
members in the negotiations. My special gratitude first goes to you,
Mr. Chairman, your strong leadership and the spirit of tenacity has
made this Marathon-like negotiation a success. I would also express my
thanks to Mr. Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO, to the former
Director-Generals of GATT and the WTO, Mr. Dunkel, Mr. Sutherland and
Mr. Ruggiero, to the officials of the Secretariat, in particular Mr.
Ravier, Mr. Hussain, Mr. Gertler, Mr. Peter Milthorp, Mr. Adlung, Mrs.
Denby Probst, as well as to all the people who have contributed their
hard work for China's accession. In the meantime, I would also thank
all my Chinese colleagues who have participated and made important
contributions to this process, especially my predecessors, Mr. Shen
Jueren, Mr. Tong Zhiguang and Mr. Gu Yongjiang. Without their efforts,
it would be impossible to achieve today's goal.
Here,
I would like to give a special thanks to the members of the US
delegation. After the terrorist attack in the United States on 11
September, Mr. Bader and his colleagues overcame many difficulties and
managed to stay in Geneva working with us. They have made important
contributions for the final success of this key Session of the Working
Party.
Just
as President Jiang Zemin pointed out recently that WTO accession is a
strategic decision made by the Chinese Government under economic
globalization and is in line with China's reform and opening-up policy
and the goal of establishing a socialist market economic system. The
achievements made in China's reform and opening-up process have
provided conditions and possibilities for China's participation into
the multilateral trading system. And on the other hand, the efforts
made by China for its WTO accession have greatly accelerated the
reform and opening-up process in China.
The
history of the past 15 years is the history of China's advancing
toward market economic system and of China's gradually adopting
international rules. It is the history of China's continuous effort to
accelerate its opening to the outside world. It is the history of
China's gradually deepening its participation into the process of
economic globalization. China has substantially reduced its tariff
levels for many times, eliminated over-whelming majority of its
non-tariff measures, gradually opened its service sectors, abolished
the mandatory plan for imports and exports, eliminated export
subsidies, established its market-based pricing mechanism, unified the
exchange system, realized the convertibility of RMB under current
account in international transactions, unified taxation system and
provided national treatment to imported product. Many proposals we
discussed here in the past have become realities in China. The work we
have accomplished today will ensure that this process will continue in
a stable and predictable manner. The 1000-page document in front of us
as a result of our painstaking negotiations will become the timeframe
for China's opening-up in the years to come and will provide the legal
basis for China's commitment to international rules.
The
outcome of China's accession to the WTO will be marked with the
feature of a “win-win” and “all-win” for China as
well as for the world. As for the rest of world, after China's
accession, the great potential of China's market will be gradually
translated into actual purchasing power, so as to provide a huge open
market to all countries and regions in the world. This would be an
important contribution to be made by China to the mankind. As for
China, it will further improve the market economic system to be in
line with the current international rules and the principles of the
WTO. China will, in light of the WTO principle of market opening on
reciprocal basis, strength its economic and technological cooperation
with all the WTO Members including developing members. China's
economic reform towards market economy and its policy of further
opening-up will greatly accelerate China's modernization drive and
enhance its ability to participate into international economy.
When
you were appointed as the Chairman of the Working Party in March 1987,
someone once said that you might be on that post for more than 10
years. In retrospect, he is indeed a man of prophecy. The complexity
and difficulty of this process are beyond the imagination of almost
everybody. It has been an unprecedented challenge to China and to the
multilateral trading system to bring a developing country in
transition from planned economy to market economy into the
multilateral trading system. The Chinese leaders have courageously
faced up this challenge with vision and wisdom and they have
demonstrated China's confidence and persistence to undertake reform
and opening-up. Their leadership has been the key to the success of
the negotiation process.
As
a Member, China will be new to the WTO. However, we are not unfamiliar
with the rules of the game of the multilateral trading system any more
thanks to the accession negotiations in the past 15 years. We believe
once China is in the WTO, the WTO will have an important new player
who will play a positive and constructive role. I would like to take
this opportunity to reiterate that while enjoying its rights, China
will strictly abide by WTO rules and conscientiously implement its
commitments in accordance with the principle of balance between rights
and obligations. We will make every contribution for the strengthening
of the multilateral trading system in economic development.
The
15-year negotiation is indeed a long process. However, it is only a
blink of eyes comparing with the 5000-year history of China. Looking
back the history in the past 15 years, we are pleased to see that we
have finally arrived at the end point today after overcoming numerous
difficulties and frustrations. But this is only the end of a
beginning--the end of the beginning for a long historical process. As
we have successfully ended this important stage of beginning, we are
more confident that we can achieve even greater success in the long
process ahead us.
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. |
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