USTR dashes hopes of early deal on China's WTO entry

Asian Economic News, April 5, 1999

BEIJING, March 30 Kyodo Substantial gaps remain in negotiations over China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), visiting U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said Tuesday. While important progress had been made in talks Tuesday in Beijing with Premier Zhu Rongji and State Councilor Wu Yi, there are ''still complex issues in front of us,'' she was quoted as saying in a statement prepared by the U.S.

Embassy. Her statement was less optimistic than comments by U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley, who indicated in Beijing on Monday that China and the United States were in the final stages of reaching an agreement on marshaling U.S. support for China's WTO accession. Barshefsky said, ''The United States will set no artificial deadlines in these negotiations. Progress will only be driven by substance.'' While the U.S. supports China's WTO membership, it can only enter on the basis of a broad commercially meaningful package that opens up domestic markets in goods, services and agricultural products, she said. ''This requires enforceable market access commitments, transparency, non-discriminatory regulatory systems and effective national treatment at the border and within China's economy,'' she said. The U.S. and China are continuing talks on China's 13-year bid to join the world trade body, Barshefsky said. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said difficult and complex issues in talks remained to be resolved in a number of areas such as agriculture, services, goods, telecommunications and sanitary issues.