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EU
trade negotiator returns to Beijing for more WTO talks |
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News |
May 16, 2000
BEIJING, MAY 15 (AP) -Expressing guarded optimism on hopes for a deal, Europe's top trade negotiator, Pascal Lamy, returned to Beijing on Monday for more talks that China hopes will smooth its entry into the World Trade Organization this year. Asked if the chances of reaching an agreement on China's WTO accession were better this time than during his last round of negotiations in March, Lamy said "probably, hopefully." "We all have to show flexibility if we want to get somewhere," Lamy, the EU's trade commissioner, told reporters after arriving in Beijing early Monday. Talks were expected to get underway Monday afternoon. The 15-nation EU is the most important of just a handful of WTO members that have yet to sign off on China's accession to the Geneva-based body that makes rules for international trade. China hopes to join the group this year after 14 years of trying. Both sides expressed hopes for a deal in the run-up to the latest talks, the fourth round of negotiations between the two sides this year. "We
hope we can complete all negotiations and related procedures as
soon as possible," Premier Zhu Rongji told the Danish prime minister
last week. "We don't want to see the E.U. be the last side to reach an agreement with us." "We hope that it will be the last round with China," Lamy also told reporters last week. "I don't think I'm extremely optimistic, I'm realistic. Maybe we'll get there, maybe we won't." The
E.U. wants more concessions from China than it granted the United
States in a WTO agreement last November. E.U. officials have said that
agreement covered only about 80 percent of their needs, and they have pushed for more market-opening concessions from China in telecommunications, financial services and automobiles, as well as for tariff reductions. "Of
course telecoms is a crucial point for us. The EU industry has
a competitive advantage," Lamy said last week. "We have 90
percent of the Chinese mobile market and we want to consolidate this position." |