Brussels, 11/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Union will renew its talks with China in view of resolving the last problems that prevent this country's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), stated European Commissioner Pascal Lamy on Saturday, after the announcement of an agreement between Washington and Beijing susceptible of putting an end to the stalemate, which lasted more than four months. "We will move swiftly to renew talks with the Chinese side to resolve our remaining differences in order to pave the way for China's accession", indicated a head of common trade policy in a Communiqué released the day after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Shi Guangsheng. On Friday, the two heads "established the necessary contacts" to try and find a common ground in view of the next meeting of the WTO working group preparing Chinese accession, which will take place from 28 June to 4 July at the institutions headquarters in Geneva, he added.
On their side, the United States and China reached an agreement on the last outstanding issues, during talks organised this week on the sidelines of a meeting of the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation forum (APEC) in Shanghai. This agreement, whose content remains for the moment confidential - official American sources are keeping themselves to confirming that it covers the "major issues" - could allow to renew the multilateral negotiations suspended since last February (see EUROPE of 9 June, p.13). After the bilateral meetings already concluded with the United States, the Union and most of the main trading partners, China was confronted with the United States' refusal to recognise it the status of developing country, which allows it to subsidies its agriculture for up to 10% of the value of agricultural production.
According to Mr Shi, the Sino-American agreement would contribute towards creating the conditions for an agreement to be reached by the end of the month in Geneva in order to rapidly put an end to the crucial talks for Chinese accession to the WTO. This breakthrough "should help us and other nations in WTO to try to complete China's accession this year" and add impetus to our efforts aiming to launch new multilateral trade negotiations in Doha in November, welcomed Robert Zoellick, the United States Trade Representative. Also present in Shanghai on Wednesday, the WTO Director General Mike Moore had felt it "inconceivable" that a new round begin without China. Mexico, which is the last trading partner with which Beijing has not yet concluded a bilateral agreement, has for its part promised not to block China's accession to the WTO, even if they do not manage to agree before the end of the multilateral process.