1970-01-01 08:33:27
China on Tuesday called for less pressure on agriculture issue as the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy was visiting Beijing in an effort to revive the stalled Doha trade talks.
"The Doha round of trade talks should not exert more pressure on China on agriculture issue as China has already taken the lead in liberalizing the trade," Chinese Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai was quoted by a statement posted on the Web site of Ministry of Agriculture.
On Monday and Tuesday, Lamy met with Chinese officials from the ministries of finance, agriculture, and the central bank.
"The pressure on China in the agricultural trade talks should be eased since the country, with nearly 900 million rural people, has made hefty cuts to import tariffs on farm produce and has a long-standing trade deficit in farm produce," Finance Minister Jin Renqing told Lamy.
China's tariff duties on farm produce have been cut to 15.3 percent this year from 54 percent in 2001, according to the statistics of the Finance Ministry. Globally, tariffs on agricultural products currently average 62 percent.
Jin also said that China will make further contributions to the Doha Round talks, and that the country has honored commitments made before it joined the WTO in 2001 by slashing tariffs and further opening its markets.
Mei Xinyu, a trade expert with the Ministry of Commerce, said China's stance is in the interest of developing countries.
In an interview with Lamy on Tuesday evening, Xinhua was told that the visit helped him "learn a lot about China's sensitivities" in the trade talks.
While recognizing China's sensitivities, Lamy said China, as a developing country, "is entitled to have flexibility without neglecting the overall objective of the talks -- that is to provide more market access."
He expressed concerns about China's market access rules for some sensitive non-agricultural products and urged more cooperation in the Doha talks among China, the United States and the European Union.
While commenting China's role in the Doha trade talks, Lamy said "China is among the main backbone to insist the resumption of the talks."
The Doha Round of trade talks was launched in 2001 with the goal of boosting the global economy and helping poor countries through fairer trade conditions. The talks have stalled mainly because of sharp differences over agriculture subsidies and tariffs.
Lamy said the major issues in the talks are "agriculture subsidies,agriculture tariffs and industrial tariffs."
"I am neither optimistic or pessimistic" about the prospect of the Doha trade talks, Lamy said.
"It is the conventional wisdom to say that we will conclude the discussion on all topics at the end of this year or early next year."
Lamy's China visit coincides with a meeting in Germany of representatives of the United States, the European Union, India and Brazil, which aimed at breaking the deadlock in the Doha round of talks.
Mei Xinyu, the trade expert, said Lamy's visit is necessary as China enjoys the biggest trade volume among all developing countries. "For Lamy, China's position is too important to miss as the Doha trade talks enter the crunch time," he said.
Lamy will also meet with Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and deliver a speech at the Party School of the Communist Party of China(CPC) Central Committee before he concludes the visit on Wednesday night.
Source: Xinhua