Brussels, 28/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, speaking at an EU-China business seminar on Tuesday 27 January, called on China to increase cooperation with the EU on a series of plurilateral trade negotiations both within and on the sidelines of the WTO.
Malmström urged China to “engage closely” with the EU and the other WTO information technology agreement (ITA) members to finalise a revised agreement, following the breakthrough with the China-US agreement of November 2014.
She said, too, that she was “very pleased” to be working with China in the negotiations on the liberalisation of the trade in environmental goods and services (“green goods initiative”), launched at the start of 2014. The EU and China “have competitive industries in sectors like renewable energy, environmental equipment and resource-efficient technologies. An ambitious agreement that eliminates tariffs, as well as addressing non-tariff barriers and services, will create economic and environmental benefits for both our societies and for the world as a whole”, she argued.
The commissioner said she was looking for more from China in that country's negotiations on joining the WTO government procurement agreement (GPA). “Clearer, more open procurement rules would help modernise China's economy and improve governance overall … and would help tackle corruption. The EU is happy that China has now made a new offer but we still have some way to go yet”, she stressed.
The commissioner restated the EU's support for China's application to join the talks on an international agreement on services (TiSA) but highlighted that the “challenge” is now for China to demonstrate its “commitment to the other major players”.
She welcomed the cooperation between the EU and China on the new international guidelines on export credits, seeking to ensure they are “based on clear rules to make sure they don't distort competition and result in a race to the bottom”. She said that “the time has come to step up the pace of our work”.
Commissioner Malmström invited China to work with the EU to take forward the Doha Round talks at the WTO, after the historic breakthrough made in Bali in December 2013, and so help “remove the blockages that have held back progress for so long - particularly the difference of opinion between emerging and developed countries on the right balance to strike”. (EH)