Although the obligations on China are very tough, the Chinese Government is doing well in fulfilling its commitments, made when the country joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) last December, WTO Director-General Mike Moore said at WTO headquarters on Friday.
Moore, who will leave office at the end of August when his three-year term comes to an end, said China is a responsible member and is playing a constructive role in the new round of multilateral trade talks.
"I am satisfied that China doesn't say, 'we have so many problems to solve and agreements to implement. Let's not talk about the Doha Agenda for the moment. Give us four or five years to absorb this, then let's talk about the round,'" Moore said.
He said he couldn’t think of one area where China hasn't done enough to fulfill its free-trade promises. "I (was) inspired when I learned that some 6,000 individual books on the WTO have been published in China," he added.
Since China became a full member of the WTO last December, the Chinese Government has made great efforts to educate its people on the WTO and its trading rules, he noted.
Moore mentioned that the growth China had seen in the past 10 years has pulled millions of people out of poverty. If the same growth were transferred to poor areas in the world, "how many more people would have led a better life, how many more children would not have died and how much a better world it would have been," he said.
On the Doha Development Agenda, Moore said the ongoing talks are going very well and were better than predicted. "We have taken the commitment (of) capacity building. Within a month (since Doha), we had an increased budget for 2002, (within) three months we had the Doha Development Fund," Moore said.
The new director-general, Dr. Supachai Panichpakdi from Thailand, will succeed Moore on September 1.
(China Daily August 5, 2002)
