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WTO Launched The Second Trade Policy Review For China

2008/4/22 15:34:00 26

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WTO Launched The Second China Trade Policy Review.

In April 21st, the WTO Secretariat will issue two new documents to Member States: the 2008 trade policy review on China, the WTO Secretariat report and the Chinese government's own policy statement.

A month later, China will welcome the second trade policy review of WTO to China in Geneva.

At the meeting, the leaders of China's Ministry of Commerce will focus on answering questions and questions from other WTO members about China's trade policy on behalf of China.

For a few days in May, she and her colleagues, deputy director of the Department of Commerce, the Ministry of Commerce, have been preparing for a year.

Their work is to prepare the Chinese government policy statement and to provide assistance to the WTO Secretariat in understanding China's policies.

This will be a "big exam". In the past two years, China's trade policy has been controversial. So far, European and American countries have joined hands with the WTO dispute settlement mechanism to put forward many appeals, including import and export policies, intellectual property rights, market access for publications, subsidy measures and financial information management measures.

"Although the trade policy review itself is not a mandatory mechanism for WTO Member States, it is a soft mechanism, but as one of the three mechanisms of WTO, it is in fact an intermediate zone between rulemaking and dispute settlement, which can increase pparency of policies and communication among Member States."

Zhang Xiangchen, director of the World Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said: "now the world economy is declining, China has become a scapegoat and has been attacked.

If we can illustrate our position and policy with some professional facts and data in WTO, we can win more members' understanding, which is very important.

Confrontation

Zhang Xiangchen remembers the success of China's first trade policy review in April 2006 in WTO.

"At that time, China's accession to the WTO was less than 5 years ago, and the honeymoon period has not yet passed. Although there are some dissatisfaction with China, there are not many cases of dispute settlement.

We and the WTO Secretariat's report said that after China joined the WTO, more than 3000 laws and regulations were cleared up, and the tariff was also lowered. It earned a lot of praise, and Lamy also played a high score of "A+" for China.

But this examination is obviously much more difficult than the last one. WTO and other member states are gradually refining their observations on China's policies.

According to the procedure, after the WTO Secretariat writes the report, it will exchange views on the first draft and the two draft with the countries under consideration, and the final draft will be distributed to all WTO members directly.

At the beginning of 2007, the WTO Secretariat first raised more than 300 questions to China, which required China to provide macro data and information.

In May, he specially visited China and met with relevant ministries and commissions to prepare the preliminary draft report.

On September 17, 2007 -25, a delegation of six secretaries led by S Bbu Hei Camp, director of the Clemens Boonekamp of the WTO Secretariat's trade policy review, visited China and talked with the relevant ministries and commissions of China on the first draft.

"From 9 a.m. to 6 pm every day, officials of the WTO Secretariat ask questions from ministries and departments."

Su Jing recalled.

At that time, the central ministries and commissions participating in the talks included the 25 ministries of the NDRC, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of justice, and the Ministry of Commerce reached 14 meetings.

At that time, China's division of labour was clarified by the WTO on the major principles and keynote issues in the report, and the amendments and suggestions were put forward.

The relevant authorities clarified and explained the specific facts and data involved in the draft.

"Through our efforts, there have been some changes in the first draft."

Su Jing said.

An example cited by her is that the Secretariat's description and conclusion of China's intellectual property protection are very bad for China in the first draft.

The Chinese side has suggested that China has done a lot of work in protecting copyright in recent years. The legal system has been improving and the law enforcement has made great progress, hoping that the conclusion can be more objective and positive.

In the two draft, the Secretariat took China's suggestions.

Another dispute arises in the evaluation of China's anti-monopoly law. In the first draft of the Secretariat's report, she questioned whether China could establish an effective anti-monopoly law enforcement system. Su Jing and her colleagues said that China is preparing the anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies, and the Secretariat's report should not conjecture about the future.

The most sensitive issue in the second review is still the trade surplus and exchange rate mechanism, China's monetary policy and export trade policy most concerned by the United States and other countries.

Some members of the United States have consistently claimed that China has subsidized trade through distorting the exchange rate mechanism.

To illustrate this situation, in January 30, 2008, Camp visited China and met with officials of the people's Bank of China and the Ministry of finance.

Su Jing said that at that time, people's Bank officials said that IMF did not consider that China manipulated the exchange rate. If the WTO secretary in his own report quoted the conclusion of a non authoritative body, it would be untenable.

firewall

But Su Jing regrets that the subsidy issue for China may still appear in the final report of the WTO Secretariat.

The logical analysis of the Secretariat is that in order to limit the export of products with high energy consumption, high pollution and consumption of large quantities of resources, such as coal and steel, China has increased the export tax on these products, resulting in the supply of these products to the domestic market, the supply of the domestic market is adequate, and the prices are depressed, so all downstream products produced by these products are indirectly subsidized.

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