China urges developed nations to make concessions to revive Doha talks

China's Minister of Commerce has reiterated the country's hopes of reviving the stalled Doha Round talks but urged developed countries to make more concessions first.

"Early resumption of the stalled Doha Round talks would require developed nations to take the lead in making substantial concessions," said Minister Bo Xilai during his talk Monday with visiting director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Pascal Lamy.

"China would like to play a constructive role to this end," he said.

China has been taking an active part in the Doha Round talks and made its contribution to the enhancement of the multilateral trade system, Bo said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.

He stressed that the Doha Round talks should not only seek progress on market access issues but also fully realize the development goals of all parties concerned.

"Only by addressing the imbalances between developed and developing countries can we secure the healthy and sustained development of global trade," he said.

According to the statement, Lamy agreed with China's determination to resume trade talks and promised to make sure developing countries would benefit from the WTO talks.

Lamy was said to have described to Bo his thoughts and concerns over the stalled Doha talks and urged China to play a bigger role.

Lamy suspended five years of Doha Round negotiations in late July because of a failure by the six major trading powers to reach a compromise on tariffs and subsidies.

Last week, US trade representative Susan Schwab came to Beijing, urging China to contribute to the early resumption of the WTO talks.

Bo didn't make a direct response, only saying China is willing to work with all relevant parties concerned to rekindle the Doha Round negotiations as early as possible.

Source: Xinhua