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China elaborates stance on development, newly-acceded members
2005-12-20
Xinhua
Support to least developed countries should be covered in the "early harvest" agreement to be reached at the ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference, the Chinese delegation said here Friday.
The delegation attended several closed-door meetings Thursday, like "green-room meeting" on development, talks on newly-acceded members, and G20 coordinating meetings, and elaborated China's stands on these issues.
On the development issue, China holds that it's a political commitment and ethic issue for developed members to provide duty-free, quota-free treatment to least developed countries.
As for the scope of products enjoying special treatment, developing countries should enjoy certain flexibility, according to the Chinese delegation.
China insisted that recently-acceded WTO members should be given more preferential treatment than developing members. They should also be given flexibility in less-reduction or no-reduction tariffs.
New members adopted almost 100 percent bound tariffs. For China, applied rates and bound tariffs are at the same level, so, any reduction commitment China makes will be substantive and a real cut.
At a G20 coordinating meeting, China brought up issues which it thinks the G20 should discuss, including the issue of newly-acceded membership.
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