China looks for substantive progress in WTO meeting (Xinhua) Updated: 2005-12-11 10:06
BEIJING, December 11 (Xinhua) -- China looks to the World Trade Organization
(WTO) talks to achieve substantive progress as the Hong Kong meeting
approaching.
"China firmly supports the WTO talks on the Doha Development Agenda, hoping
the imminent Hong Kong meeting will achieve substantive progress," said Zhang
Xiangchen, director of the Department for WTO Affairs under the Ministry of
Commerce (MOFCOM).
China hopes this round of talks will end by 2006 as scheduled and that the
Hong Kong meeting will get "early harvest" in areas where the members have
reached broad consensus, Zhang said.
The sixth WTO's ministerial meeting, the international organization's top
decision-making body, is scheduled from December13 to 18 in Hong Kong.
The Doha Development Agenda was kicked off as a new round of talks to
liberalize trade in November 2001 during a WTO members' meeting in the Qatari
capital, Doha.
The original aim of the Doha Round was to conclude a treaty by January 1,
2005, but now the members hope to make it by the end of 2006.
An impasse over farm trade is believed to be the crux of the Doha Round
talks, according to analysts.
Developing countries want developed countries, including European Union, the
United States and Japan to cut down their farm subsidies and import tariffs.
However, the latter are unwilling to do so in the excuse that their
governments are faced with great pressure from domestic agricultural
organizations.
Meanwhile, the developed countries demand the developing ones to cut tariff
on manufactured goods and to open up service sectors to wider international
competition.
In early November, the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy proposed a
readjustment of vested goals, essentially a tune-down, for the upcoming WTO's
ministerial conference because progress at the moment was insufficient to
produce a package that could comprehensively address all major issues in the
Doha Round.
Is it a time that the 148 members of WTO have to take a cold-eyed perspective
at what can realistically be achieved in Hong Kong?
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