Chinese, Mexican officials meet ahead of WTO talks

November 4, 2000
Web posted at: 9:43 AM HKT (0143 GMT)

GENEVA (Reuters) -- Chinese trade officials held talks Friday with officials from Mexico, the last state with which Beijing must make a bilateral deal to pave the way for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), diplomats said.

Long Yongtu, China's vice minister of foreign trade and its chief WTO negotiator, led Beijing's delegation in the closed-door negotiations in Geneva, they added.

An informal meeting of the WTO working party negotiating the terms of accession for China, scheduled for Monday, will set a date for formal multilateral talks expected later in the week, a WTO spokeswoman told a news briefing.

Diplomats expected the formal meeting to be held on Wednesday or Thursday, following the U.S. presidential election.

Many diplomats doubted that a final agreement could be produced by year-end to allow China to join the 138-member global trade organization after 14 years of trying.

Top U.S. and European Union trade negotiators said in Washington Thursday that they were working together to help the world's biggest nation join the WTO by the end of the year.

European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy told reporters after meeting U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky that the two powers -- who have clinched bilateral deals with China -- were working together to complete the accession process in 2000.

"At the end of the day, we cannot move faster than China is willing to move," Barshefsky conceded. "We want to make sure this accession is done right."

Diplomats say sticking points include how China will implement WTO rules on intellectual property (copyrights and trademarks), trade-related investment measures and other reforms, including how it will assign safeguard quotas for a vast array of goods imported under special tariffs.

China has clinched bilateral deals with nearly 40 states on specific entry terms, including Switzerland in late September, leaving Mexico as the final bilateral holdout.

Pierre-Louis Girard, the Swiss diplomat who chairs the WTO working party, said after the last round in September that multilateral negotiations had hit serious obstacles that needed high-level political guidance to resolve.

The next round of talks would have to be "substantially different in nature and outcome from this session," he added.

The multilateral round had been expected this week, but was postponed after Girard was injured in a road accident.

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