China has done well in fulfilling its accession obligations to the World Trade Organization and its performance has been widely recognized, Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said Thursday.
Since China acceded to the WTO in 2001, it has made continued efforts to improve its socialist market economy system, further align its policies with multilateral trade rules in all areas, honor its commitments on opening trade in goods and services, and strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, Wang told a press briefing on the white paper, "China and the World Trade Organization", which was released Thursday.
By 2010, China had fulfilled all of its tariff reduction commitments, reducing the average tariff level from 15.3 percent in 2001 to 9.8 percent, said Wang.
China will release two new negative lists for foreign investors before the end of June, one for nationwide implementation and one for pilot free trade zones, to further expand opening-up measures, he said.
Speaking of the trade dispute settlement within the WTO framework, Wang said WTO member countries can lodge complaints against China if they think China has not fulfilled WTO commitments, and vice versa, and China will make corrections if it loses the case.
"China is flawless in implementing WTO rulings and none of the complainants has requested for retaliation against China," said Wang, adding that China stands firm in supporting multilateral rules.
By lodging complaints in the WTO, China redressed other members' violation of obligations under the covered agreements, and defended its own trade interests as well as the authority of WTO rules, according to the white paper.
By April 2018, China had brought 17 disputes to the WTO, of which 8 had been concluded. Meanwhile, China had been complained against in 27 disputes, of which 23 had been concluded, according to the white paper.
