MAIN PAGE | SPEECHES & EDITORIALS | 2001 | CHINA'S TRADE GOALS 2001
PACIFIC BASIN ECONOMIC COUNCIL
MAIN PAGE | SPEECHES & EDITORIALS | 2001 | CHINA'S TRADE GOALS 2001
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China's Trade Goals 2001
Minister Liu Xiaoming
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It's my great pleasure to attend the PBEC US Annual Policy Conference here. 1. China's Trade Goals for 2001 China has set four goals for its foreign trade this year:
2. APEC 2001 China attaches great importance to APEC. It is not only because APEC's 21 member economies have a combined Gross Domestic Product of over US$ 18 trillion today and about 44% of global trade, but because China has close economic and trade relations with APEC economies. Nine of China's ten largest trading partners are APEC economies. In 1999, 75.13% of China's import and export was conducted with APEC economies with a total of US$ 270.9 billion. In 1999, out of US$ 41.24 billion foreign direct investment utilized by China, US$ 30.92 billion was from APEC economies, accounting for 74.9% of the total. So taking an active part in Asia-Pacific Region's economic cooperation, helping establish an open trade and investment environment are important for China to develop the economic and trade relations with APEC members. They are also very significant to China's on-going reform and long-term economic development. As you know, later this year, China will host the ninth APEC Leaders' Informal Meeting and a series of related meetings and functions this year in Shanghai, the leading industrial and financial city of China. The city's Pudong New Area, on the east bank of the Hangpu River, will be the venue of the meeting. The Chinese government has attached great importance to the 2001 meeting. We hope APEC 2001 will play a key role in setting the economic globalization along the path of "seeking benefit while avoiding damage" and serving common development of all economies. We believe the meeting will provide a historical opportunity for displaying China's commitment to reform and opening up, solidifying its friendships and cooperation with the other APEC members, and promoting a sound development of Asia-Pacific economic partnership. The goals for China to host APEC 2001 are: First, to advance the APEC process and strengthen member economies' capacity to meet the challenges of globalization and the New Economy in the new century; Second, to promote China's relations with other APEC members; And third, to demonstrate China's commitment to fully integrating into the global economy. The theme of APEC Shanghai 2001 is "Meeting new challenges in the new century: achieving common prosperity through participation and cooperation". We are consulting with other members for specific sub-themes. Centering around this theme, the agenda items may include the following three points: FIRST, strengthening capacity building and opening up new opportunities for future development so that all members will benefit from globalization and the New Economy. The Shanghai Meeting will discuss ECOTECH (Economic and Technical Cooperation), Digital Opportunities, Strengthening HRD (Human Resource Development), and Corporate Governance. The New Economy is a fresh driving force behind the dynamic process of the global economy. It poses as both an opportunity and a challenge to the Pacific Rim. The New Economy Action Agenda of Brunei is a very good start. The Shanghai Meeting will discuss how APEC can spread the benefits of the New Economy and meet the new challenges of the "digital divide". Another main objective of the Shanghai Meeting is to develop the tripartite partnership among governments, business and training institutions. Base on this, we will formulate an APEC human capacity building strategy, and develop certain concrete projects in training. We are very much interested in contacting some big US companies that are interested in HRD (Human Resource Development) and see how we can forge some partnership with them. China and Brunei will jointly host the High Level Meeting on Human Capacity Building in May this year. SECOND, promoting trade and investment and facilitating the establishment of a more reasonable multilateral trading system. China places great importance on TILF (Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation), one of the two pillars of APEC Cooperation. It is also an area in which APEC could show its leadership to the rest of the world by creating a favorable environment for business. Year 2001 could be of great importance for the launch of the New Round of WTO talks, as the 4th WTO Ministerial Meeting is scheduled for this year. We hope that APEC will play an active role in pushing WTO to adopt a balanced agenda for the new round of WTO talks. As leaders and ministers have identified trade facilitation as one of the priorities for APEC work in 2001, China and some APEC members are now considering propose an initiative for "one stop/one window approach" at the customs and other non-binding principles on trade facilitation. THIRD, creating a favorable macro environment for the sustainable economic development of the Asia-Pacific region. We believe that APEC should pay close attention to financial issues, strengthen financial regulation, be good at formulating financial policies in accordance with actual circumstances, keep a sound financial order and ward off financial risks. The recent Asian financial crisis has forced the APEC economies to cherish all the more the APEC-wide cooperation on promoting macro environment for sustainable growth. On this, the Shanghai Meeting will discuss three sub-themes: (1) Enhancing financial cooperation; We now consider of establishing the Shanghai APEC Finance and Development Center, with the views to enhancing human and institutional capacity building in financial field among member economies. (2) Promoting macroeconomic policy dialogue. (3) Launching structural reform. We believe, if cooperation in this area goes well, APEC will enjoy a new lease of life. 3. China's Accession to WTO China's WTO accession is conducive to China's economic development and reform as well as to the strengthening of the multilateral trading system itself. It will also bring enormous trade and investment opportunities to American business communities. Therefore, China's accession will be a win-win result for the two countries. In the last session of working party ended two weeks ago, significant progress on some outstanding issues has been made. For instance, consensus has been reached on the texts on anti-dumping and product-specific safeguard provisions. As for the other difficult issues, we have conducted serious and candid consultations with relevant WTO Members. It's regrettable that we did not reach a package agreement this time due to one or two major issues. One of them is agriculture. China has a total agricultural population of 900 million. To ensure agricultural stability is of utmost importance to China's social stability and economic development. It is an indisputable fact that China's agriculture is characterized by inferior natural endowments, inefficient of labor force and backward technology. Therefore, China needs to retain WTO-consistent agricultural support measures after its accession. The interests of the 900 millions Chinese farmers will always be our top priority. China has worked hard and made concessions in the market access negotiations in agriculture. China has pledged to deeply cut its tariffs on agricultural products and committed sufficient tariff quota quantities for such important agricultural products as grain, cotton, vegetable oil and sugar, and will apply a tariff quota administration system which is open, transparent and reflecting market conditions after accession. At the same time, China has committed not to introduce export subsidies of trade-distorting effect. Even the majority of the developed countries have not yet done so. This effort demonstrates the enormous flexibility of China for moving negotiations forward. The precondition for this commitment, however, is that China will retain the right of invoking developing countries provisions with regard to domestic support. China looks forward to its early WTO accession, thereby to start the implementation of its commitments made in the negotiations with the WTO Members, with the benefit of China's opening market place. After China's accession to the WTO, China's tariff level for US manufactured products will go down from 25% to 9% by 2005, and from 31% to 14% for US agricultural products. American farm exports to China will increase by about US$ 2 billion each year, which will help reduce US trade deficit with China. Meanwhile, American companies will enjoy greater access to China's domestic financial and circulation system. The benefits for China are obvious too, as China will expect greater trade value with and greater investment and technology inflow from the United States. It is our firm belief that China's reform and opening-up help bring about healthy and rapid economic growth and in China and will inject greater vigor into the global economy. No matter when it accedes to the WTO, China will reduce its tariff level, gradually eliminate non-tariff measures and adopt a more open, more transparent, more simpler market-oriented trade regime in light of the need of its economic development. In 1996, President Jiang Zemin solemnly pledged at the Fourth APEC Leaders' Informal Meeting that China would reduce its tariff level to around 15% in 2000. On January 1, 2001, China took the initiative to reduce its tariff level once again after five tariff reductions since 1992. After this reduction, the tariff level of China has been come down to 15.3%, which includes tariff reductions on 3462 tariff lines with an average reduction level of 6.6%, accounting for 49% of China's total tariff lines. With this action, China has made its contributions to global trade liberalization. China and the United States are great countries. I believe, with our joint cooperation and contribution, APEC and the Pacific Rim at large will witness promising new century. Shanghai, China, will be the starting point of the new century of cooperation. Thank you. I'm ready to take your questions. |