Financial Times: Comments on China's accession to WTO for half a year

Introduction: experts believe that China did not encounter any accidents, no impact, and certainly did not enter the "honeymoon" on November 11, 2001 Every Chinese who knew or expected to enter the WTO was smiling On this day, China officially became a member of the WTO family By May 11, 2002, it was six months from the Doha Ministerial Conference of WTO In other words, China's formal accession to the WTO had been six months In these 180 days, the WTO that people see seems to be closely linked with friction How to evaluate the half year of China's accession to the WTO? On May 9, the financial times gave an exclusive interview to Zhang Hanlin, a professor of Beijing University of foreign trade and economic cooperation and an expert on WTO issues Financial Times: it's been half a year since the historic moment in Doha Compared with the expectation half a year ago, what did you think of and what didn't you think of? Zhang Hanlin: no surprise If we have to say that we can't imagine, we can say that the foreign trade situation in the first quarter will be so good Financial Times: can you make a small section on China and WTO in the past six months? Zhang Hanlin: four aspects First, foreign trade performed normally Some of the things people worried about before did not appear, especially the influx of imported cars and the setback of exports Import and export growth was better than expected, especially exports At the same time, import growth is not too fast It should be said that it is still a healthy growth, and its import and export are relatively coordinated, maintaining a trade surplus of more than 20 billion yuan Second, perhaps the biggest change is the policy environment From last year to now, China has abolished hundreds of administrative regulations, revised nearly one hundred, and re enacted dozens of them In particular, the management system in the field of foreign trade and economic cooperation has begun to be fully legalized, and the legal system has become sound We have made positive efforts and achieved great results in legislation and international integration, and even Europe and the United States, which often complain about our insufficient efforts in this regard, have given positive affirmation Third, the administrative departments have made corresponding adjustments, and new functional departments such as the Bureau of industrial damage investigation and the Bureau of fair trade have been established successively It is worth noting that the combination of the entry-exit inspection and quarantine department and the General Administration of quality supervision, inspection and Quarantine of the people's Republic of China (AQSIQ) has implemented the same, fair, objective and standardized inspection and quarantine standards and technical standards for products from home and abroad, which has changed the practices of the two sets of standards at home and abroad, and is in line with the international practice, which is a great progress Fourth, the opening up of domestic service industry has been put on the agenda, the legislation in the field of service trade has been improved, and the customary regulations in the field of service trade have been issued one after another, and the opening up of finance, telecommunications, tourism and other fields has entered the fast lane In the first quarter, we issued business licenses to eight foreign insurance companies, which surprised many foreigners as a country just starting the insurance industry More and more friction? Financial Times: I feel that friction in the field of trade and economy has increased in the past six months Zhang Hanlin: it's an illusion Before entering WTO, these frictions already existed For example, anti-dumping was more serious than it is now At most, there were more than 40 cases in one year, but now there are only a dozen cases in one year The total amount is actually declining Financial Times: from the perspective of the world, the friction is still more and more intense Zhang Hanlin: there are many reasons for this situation, which can be roughly summed up in the following points: -- from the international perspective, the global economy has slowed down obviously, and the economic development of developed countries has been particularly slow, especially last year, the development of Global trade has slowed down In this case, trade protection is easy to rise -- high tariff reduction With the process of economic integration, tariff is no longer the main trade barrier, and non-tariff measures are bound to increase -- Judging from the domestic situation, we do have a gap in our own development At present, less than 50% of China's export products are produced according to international standards, and even less than 30% if processing trade is excluded Therefore, China's products are subject to certain restrictions in foreign countries, especially in developed countries, which is not entirely unfair -- in the past, only a few dozen of our enterprises had the right to import and export foreign trade, but now there are tens of thousands of them On the basis of the increase of the base number, it is quite normal for the increase of friction From another point of view, in the past, our import and export trade volume was 45 billion At that time, people naturally didn't have to limit you Now we are 500 billion, and some people have to limit you To be calm, this is actually a good thing, which shows that it regards you as a strong competitor WTO and China don't have honeymoon Financial Times: WTO and China, if we can say "honeymoon", now, is honeymoon just beginning or has it ended? Zhang Hanlin: no honeymoon WTO and China are not lovers or couples For China, this is the inevitable result of seeking development It is a revolutionary change If we don't make such a change and an important decision based on "big power", China's economy will not develop greatly and it will be difficult for China to become strong Qkj (author:) to feed Weibo to: