WTO head says China has delivered an A+ performance

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World Trade Organization [File photo]

China has delivered an "A-plus performance" since the Asian economic powerhouse entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said Tuesday in China.

"In the past 10 years, overall, China has applied the rules, although not 100 percent," Lamy said in a speech at Sichuan University. He is on a tour of the southwestern city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, where a western China international fair is being held.

China's entry into the trade bloc has benefited not only China, but also the entire world, he said, adding that "the result is a win-win situation where China has received a lot from international trade and other WTO members have also got a lot from the opening of China."

Lamy's comments echoed those of Premier Wen Jiabao, who said last week that after its accession to the WTO, China received a great economic boost and its overall competitiveness had been greatly improved.

"Many countries around the world have also gained tangible benefits," Wen told a forum on the 10th Anniversary of China's accession to the WTO, which was held on the sidelines of the 110th Canton Fair in southern Guangdong province.

Over the past 10 years, China has imported an annual average of 750 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods and created more than 14 million jobs for its trading partners, according to official statistics.

Meanwhile, Chinese enterprises operating overseas employed nearly 800,000 people locally and paid over 10 billion U.S. dollars in taxes every year.

"In this difficult time of the world economy, there are some protectionists there," said Lamy. The international community must be extremely vigilant to prevent protectionist measures causing adverse effects, he added.

Last Friday, Premier Wen also urged all nations to further open their markets and reject rising protectionism in the fight against the current financial crisis.

"If we promote trade and investment among countries, the world economy will likely have an early recovery," he said.

On gobalization, Lamy said that it is a time of "made in the world," not made in China, in the U.S., or made in Germany.

During his visit in a Chengdu plant of Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, Lamy described Foxconn as a "very good example of world production" because products like iPhones are assembled in China with parts imported from other countries such as the U.S., Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Saying China was the heart of the "Factory Asia," he said that the phenomenon could have only developed because the global demand structure requires a greater production variety.

"Over the past 30 years, globalization has been a key feature in our societal developments. It is often considered the key driver of an economic integration of unprecedented scope resulting in a changing geography of the world economy," he said.