December 21, 2001	Friday	Shawwal 5, 1422

GENEVA, Dec 20: China on Wednesday used the first World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting it has attended as a full member to plead for richer countries in the body to offer better trading terms to the poorest.

In a speech to the WTO’s ruling General Council, Chinese envoy Long Yongtu also pledged that his country would be a good partner to the other 142 states in the organisation and play a positive and constructive role in its work.

Long said China hoped the new Doha Round of trade liberalisation talks agreed at a WTO ministerial conference in the Qatari capital last month will fully take into account the interests and reasonable needs of developing countries.

China believed the new round should pay special attention to the needs of the world’s 48 least-developed countries, or LDCs, which have an average income of less than $1 a day.

The LDCs, 29 of which are members of the WTO, should be given special terms on the degree to which they are expected to open their domestic markets to foreign goods and services, and on the speed with which this is implemented, Long added.

China was itself given the green light to join the WTO — mainly on developing country terms at the Doha gathering. It became a full member on December 11.

Long said developing countries and in particlar the LDCs were lacking in experience and knowledge in many areas that the Doha Round negotiations, due to be launched at the end of January and to last three years, would cover.

The developed countries benefiting most from economic globalisation have the obligation to provide necessary support to developing members in technical assistance and capacity building, he said.

Long told the meeting that China’s 15-year effort to get into the WTO demonstrated that it had taken a strategic decision to become a full part of the global economy.

China’s accession to the WTO will bring benefit not only to itself but also to all WTO members...It will certainly create a far-reaching and deep impact on the economy of the world as well as China in the new century, he said.

Beijing has yet to appoint its first ambassador to the Geneva-based WTO, and Long has made clear he is not taking up the job. Diplomats said another deputy foreign trade minister was in line for the post and was likely to be named shortly.—Reuters