Ambassador Liu Xiaoming Delivers A Keynote Speech and Answers Questions at the Webinar with UK Think Tanks On China-Europe Relations
Reza Moghadam from Morgan Stanley: I have two very quick questions. First, Ambassador, you mentioned the support for the WTO both in Europe and China. But of course there is an impasse there at the moment. So my question to you is: Would China be prepared to join voluntarily a sub-set of countries that would abide by WTO decisions? Second, you mentioned at the outset that the very large volume of trade between China and the EU. Of course, a lot of that is in goods, but what is missing in that relationship is services. I wonder if Ambassador has any thoughts on how to increase the volume of services trade between the EU and China, which is much less significant than goods. Thank you very much.
Ambassador Liu: On the WTO, China is forthcoming in terms of engaging with the WTO, but still we have some disagreement with the European countries on how China should be treated. We still believe China is a developing country. Though China have fulfilled, three years ahead of schedule, the commitment made when it joined the WTO. China is still ready to make further progress on that.
On services trade, Europe, including UK, has its strength and advantages. I think that's why I said, there's complementarity between China and Europe in economy. We would like to have more European service businesses in China. If you have followed closely, China's New Foreign Investment Law came into effect at the beginning of this year. There are a lot of new policies regarding the service sector. China's service sector will be opened up wider, and many restrictions on the service sector have been lifted. More foreign banks and insurance companies can have more business opportunities in China. The cap has been brought down and the negative list has been shortened. We also lift the restrictions on Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) and RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor(RQFII).
