The European Commission said Saturday that China's formal accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the "leap" in the history of the rule-based global trade body.
"In welcoming China as a new member of the WTO, we expand our membership by 1.2 billion people," said European Union (EU) executive commissioner Pascal Lamy.
"Today's decision is historic: it is the WTO's greatest leap inthe history of the organization," Lamy said of the formal approvalof China's membership by the WTO at its 4th ministerial meeting inDoha, Qatar.
For this entry, Lamy said, China had long and arduous negotiations with WTO members which took a full 15 years to complete. "In retrospect, the history of the last 15 years of negotiations has also been the history of China's own reform process, its gradual opening up, and its integration into the world economy."
"The phenomenal seven percent compound average annual growth rates, which are expected to continue in the future, testify to the success of the (Chinese) government's economic policies. People in China are on average four times as wealthy today as they were in 1978, when the open-door policy was started," Lamy said ina statement that was released both in Doha and Brussels.
"I look forward to working together, hand-in-hand with China, to strengthen further the multilateral trading system," Lamy said on behalf of the European Commission, the EU's executive body.
( Xinhua News Agency 11/11/2001)
