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APEC Leaders Support China's Early Accession into WTO
Leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Thursday supported China's early accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The leaders welcomed the substantial progress that has been made over the past years in the WTO accession negotiations for China and urged rapid completion of these negotiations so that China can join it as soon as possible, according to the Leaders' Declaration issued at the end of their 8th annual meeting in Brunei Thursday.
The leaders also supported rapid accession to the WTO by Chinese Taipei and the advancement of the accession processes of Russia and Vietnam.
The leaders reiterated the need to expeditiously launch a new round WTO talks for the benefit of all WTO members, particularly least-developed and developing economies and agreed that a balanced and sufficiently broad-based agenda that responds to the interests and concerns of all WTO members should be formulated and finalized as soon as possible in 2001 and that a new round of talks be launched in 2001.
They welcomed the progress made to develop the strategic APEC plan on building capacity to implement WTO agreements and endorsed the strategic plan to increase momentum towards the launch of the new round WTO talks.
Meanwhile, the leaders noted the recent developments in regional trade arrangements in the Asia Pacific region, and agreed that regional and bilateral trade agreements should serve as building blocks for multilateral liberalization in the WTO and should be consistent with WTO rules and disciplines.
Leaders and their representatives of the 21 APEC member economies except Papua New Guinea attended this year's meeting.
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