Zoellick thanks China for supporting WTO farm cut proposals

Asian Economic News, Feb 24, 2003

BEIJING, Feb. 17 Kyodo

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick thanked China on Monday for supporting U.S. proposals for World Trade Organization (WTO) members to cut their agricultural subsidies, but added China also needs to do more to cut its own farm tariffs.

''We have been very pleased in that we have gotten some very good support from China on our agriculture proposals,'' Zoellick told reporters in Beijing, following the failure of a weekend, informal WTO meeting in Tokyo to resolve differences over agricultural subsidies that are dividing member countries.

''Given the fact that China constrained the use of subsidies and cut a lot of tariffs, it has been supportive of our proposals to cut subsidies and tariffs,'' he said.

The United States, Japan and the European Union (EU) were still far apart Sunday at the winding up of the meeting, despite efforts by the participating 22 selected economies of the 145-member WTO to reach a consensus.

The WTO has set a March 31 deadline to achieve a wide-ranging agreement on farm market liberalization.

Chinese trade officials have acknowledged the agricultural tariff cuts they have adopted since China joined the WTO in December 2001 are insufficient, although they have made some improvements in this area, said Zoellick.

''But what I have stressed is that having had that problem once, we really don't expect to have that problem on a continuing basis,'' he said, citing cotton as a sector where China has not done enough to open up its agricultural market to overseas imports.

On the whole, however, China's ''performance has been pretty good'' in liberalizing its domestic market to accord with WTO rules, he said.

Zoellick talked with Vice Premier Wen Jiabao and Ministry of Trade and Economic Cooperation head Shi Guangsheng on Monday morning, before leaving for Chongqing in western China. He is then due to travel to China's southern entrepreneurial cities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

While Zoellick said the two Chinese leaders admitted that goods piracy is ''rampant'' in China, he said they showed him examples of laws designed to stem the infringement of intellectual property, a major headache for goods and services sectors of U.S. industry trying to crack the Chinese market.

Zoellick said he can use another problematic aspect of China-U.S. trade relations -- China's trade surplus with the U.S. -- to put pressure on Chinese trade officials to carry out further market opening moves, according to WTO rules.

''Protectionism doesn't help my country and it doesn't help theirs. The key point is that China is selling a lot to the U.S. that is good for our consumers, that is good for their growth. But it does mean that we have to have a fair shot at selling products here,'' he said.

The U.S. Commerce Department calculated that in November last year the U.S. goods trade deficit with China had soared 9.7% to $10.5 billion, the second highest deficit after a record high $10.9 billion in August. China's trade officials have a much lower estimate of the deficit.