China Witnesses a Thorough Change of High Tariff: Statistics

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 30, 2002

China Witnesses a Thorough Change of High Tariff: Statistics

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According to statistics from the State Statistic Bureau indicates, the general tariff rate for import has reduced to 12 percent in 2002 from the 43.2 percent in 1992. It means a thorough alteration of high tariff policy as traditionally practiced by China in the past.

Since 1992, China has for many a time and on a larger scale lowered its tariff for imported goods with the past 10 years witnessed a reduction of 31.2 percent. According to the commitment made by China to the outside world, China will lower its general tariff rate to 10 percent by 2005, nearing further to the international standard.

In the meanwhile, China has cancelled its export subsidy, practices of multiple exchange rates, internally a differentiation of trade and non-trade rates while externally the official and regulatory rates, and the use and circulation of the people's currency together with the foreign exchange coupon and son on. Instead, it has put into practice on the basis of market supply and demand a single, yet controllable floating rate, making it a unified and relatively stable exchange rate of the people's currency. By doing so, it has made foreigners, compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to use the people's currency too, rendering them to enjoy a basic treatment in consuming price as do the Chinese nationals.

Since 1990s, China has by and by joined a number of international conventions and treaties, such as the "United Nations Convention on International Sales of Goods", "Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards", "Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property", "Convention Establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency" and the "Convention on the Settlement of Investment Dispute between States and Citizens of Other States" and so on. Besides, China has signed bilateral "agreement for investment protection" with 89 countries and "trade agreement" with more than 160 countries in the world.

And so China has made a rapid development in foreign trade. A statistic indicates, 2001 saw China reached 509.8 billion US dollars in total import and export value with the export and import to reach a respective 266.2 and 243.6 billion US dollars, which is a respective increase of 3.6, 4.1 and 3.1 times as against that in 1989. In a situation in which the world trade was going downhill China's foreign trade value on the contrary jumped up to the 6th place in the world with its dependence on foreign trade reached 44 percent, an increase by some 20 percentage points.

By People's Daily Online

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