China has comprehensively and fully implemented the extensive commitments it made when joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a senior Chinese official said in Geneva on Wednesday.

China's average tariff level of industrial goods was lowered from 14.8 percent before its WTO accession to 9.1 percent in 2005, and during the same period, the tariff level of agricultural products was down from 23.2 percent to 15.3 percent, said Vice Commerce Minister Yi Xiaozhun.

He added China had become a relatively low-tariff member within the WTO, and China had also completely phased out quantitative import restrictions in compliance with its commitments.

Yi was speaking to WTO members at the global trade organization 's first trade policy review of China. The review is one of the basic functions of the WTO, which aims to improve the transparency of members' trade policies.

According to the official, China has also opened up 10 service sectors and 100 sub-sectors to the committed levels. Those sub- sectors include banking, insurance, distribution, telecoms, legal service, accounting, etc..

Besides, China's trade-related laws, regulations and rules have been extensively reviewed and brought into full compliance with its commitments on accession.

China also has made tremendous efforts in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, which Yi said was a global issue, a challenge faced by even many developed members within the WTO.

"Within merely 20 years, a complete legislative and enforcement system for IPR protection has been put in place in China, and the public awareness about IPR protection has been dramatically raised, " Yi stressed.

He said since China's WTO accession, all its IPR-related laws and regulations had been amended to conform to the TRIPs (Trade- related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and its IPR enforcement efforts had been continuously intensified.

Concrete measures by the Chinese government have produced positive results, and China is determined to constantly improve IPR protection through long-standing efforts, the official said.

Source: Xinhua