China is facing more and more trade conflicts along with its faster development, opening market and entrance into a key transition period since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), an official with the Ministry of Commerce has said.

A sharp rise in China's foreign trade volume certainly will lead to changes in the international trade pattern, said Vice Minister Gao Hucheng at the ongoing working conference on fair trade held in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Trade conflicts, mainly triggered by protectionism, will occur more frequently accompanying globalization development and China's greater participation in world economic affairs, he said.

Statistics showed the total volume of China's exports and imports reached 851.2 billion US dollars last year, over 40 times that in 1978.

However, according to the figures from the WTO, there totally have been 2,416 anti-dumpling cases registered since the WTO's establishment in 1995 with 356 of them concerning China, or one seventh of the total.

China is also confronted with a contradiction between opening its market and protecting its domestic industries, said the official.

At the request of domestic enterprises, China has launched 63 anti-dumping investigations since its entry into the WTO in 2001.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2004)