China has comprehensively and fully implemented the extensive commitments it
made when joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a senior Chinese
official said here on Wednesday.
China's average tariff level of industrial goods was lowered from 14.8
percent before its WTO accession to 9.1 percent in 2005, and during the same
period, the tariff level of agricultural products was down from 23.2 percent to
15.3 percent, said Vice Commerce Minister Yi Xiaozhun.
He added China had become a relatively low-tariff member within the WTO, and
China had also completely phased out quantitative import restrictions in
compliance with its commitments.
Yi was speaking to WTO members at the global trade organization 's first
trade policy review of China. The review is one of the basic functions of the
WTO, which aims to improve the transparency of members' trade policies.
According to the official, China has also opened up 10 service sectors and
100 sub-sectors to the committed levels. Those sub- sectors include banking,
insurance, distribution, telecoms, legal service, accounting, etc..
Besides, China's trade-related laws, regulations and rules have been
extensively reviewed and brought into full compliance with its commitments on
accession.
China also has made tremendous efforts in intellectual property rights (IPR)
protection, which Yi said was a global issue, a challenge faced by even many
developed members within the WTO.
"Within merely 20 years, a complete legislative and enforcement system for
IPR protection has been put in place in China, and the public awareness about
IPR protection has been dramatically raised, " Yi stressed.
He said since China's WTO accession, all its IPR-related laws and regulations
had been amended to conform to the TRIPs (Trade- related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights) Agreement and its IPR enforcement efforts had been continuously
intensified.
Concrete measures by the Chinese government have produced positive results,
and China is determined to constantly improve IPR protection through
long-standing efforts, the official said.