July 17, 2024

Mr Chair, Colleagues,

Good morning. It’s my great pleasure to attend the WTO’s 9th Trade Policy Review for China. I’d like to thank Chair Adamu Mohammed Abdulhamid for your warm introduction, Ambassador Dandy Satria Iswara for serving as the discussant. I would also like to thank Director Alexander Keck and his team for the hard work. Over the past year, we’ve had extensive communications and discussions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that the WTO is a key pillar of multilateralism and important platform of global economic governance. China attaches great importance to the work of the WTO and the TPRM. Joining me today are Ambassador Li Chenggang and nearly 40 colleagues. They are from twelve authorities in capital and the mission in Geneva.

China sincerely welcomes members’ constructive comments. So far, we have received 1029 questions from 44 members. We appreciate that most members follow the consensus of 75 indicative limit reached in the 7th appraisal. China has submitted replies to all 898 questions received before July 3. Replies to other questions will be provided within the time limit.

Besides, to help members understand China’s economic and trade policy better, a side event was held yesterday. We had in-depth exchanges on issues of concern to the members. Moving forward, we will continue to do our bit for the TPRM to play a better role.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that China is committed to a mutually beneficial and win-win strategy of opening-up and advocates universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. China steadily expands institutional opening-up of rules, regulations, management and standards and pushes for a better role for the WTO and other multilateral institutions. Faced with global challenges, such as weak economic recovery, sluggish trade growth, food crisis, climate change and development gap, China has explored and kept to the Chinese path to modernization during the review period, pursuing high-quality development and offering China’s solutions to global challenges. Now let me brief you on four aspects.

1. China continues to play an important role in global development.

China is the engine of global growth. During the review period, China’s economy grew steadily. In 2023, China’s GDP increased by 5.2% over the previous year. The international community has ever stronger confidence in China’s economic development. The IMF has raised its 2024 growth forecast for China to 5%. The United Nations and the World Bank, among other international organizations, have also revised upward their forecasts for China’s economic growth several times. The Chinese economy, with its strong resilience, enormous potential and great vitality, keeps injecting strong impetus into the world economy.

China provides a vast market to the world. China is now a major trading partner of over 140 countries and regions. It has been the world’s second largest importer of goods for 15 consecutive years. China’s service imports have grown rapidly by over 9% for many years in a row. The China International Import Expo (CIIE) is the world’s first national expo dedicated to import. China’s “shopping cart” is getting bigger and better. In the next few years, the middle-income group in China will exceed 800 million. China’s vast market is bound to bring greater opportunities to the world.

China is a fertile ground for foreign companies to take root and thrive. China strives to foster a world-class market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment. Multinational companies are upbeat about investing in China. In 2023, Tesla’s Shanghai plant delivered 947,000 vehicles, more than half of its global production capacity. BASF has invested over 13 billion euros in China. In 2023, 54,000 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in China, a year-on-year increase of nearly 40%. According to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report, China was the second largest recipient of FDI inflows worldwide in 2023. The 2024 Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index (FDICI) places China up to the third place in the world and first among emerging markets.

China supports developing countries in accelerating their development. As a member of the Global South, China is committed to strengthening South-South cooperation and narrowing the developing gap. To this end, China has proposed and pressed ahead with the Global Development Initiative. China’s market is among the most open ones to the LDCs. Zero tariff has been granted to products under 98% tariff lines originating from the LDCs. China has been LDCs’ main export market since 2008. China has achieved positive results under Aid for Trade initiative and helped eight LDCs join the WTO. In addition, under the Belt and Road Initiative, China is working with partner countries to promote green and sustainable trade and investment cooperation, create more jobs and tax revenue, and boost economic development in local communities.

2. China is committed to high-standard opening-up on a deeper level.

China has further lowered import tariffs and enhanced trade facilitation. As of July 2023, China’s overall tariff rate decreased to 7.3%, which is at a low level in global terms. China has also made progress in smart customs. At the end of 2022, import and export clearance took around 32 and 1 hours respectively on a national average, significantly shorter than the previous review period.

China keeps expanding opening-up in services. In March, China released its first national negative list for cross-border trade in services. The negative list for pilot Free Trade Zones (FTZs) was further shortened. The Law on Cybersecurity, Rules on Promoting and Regulating Cross-Border Data Flows have facilitated data movement across borders with an improved outbound data transfer system.

China keeps relaxing market access for foreign investors. The manufacturing sector in the FTZs has been fully liberalized, and China is working to remove all market access restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing nationwide. Meanwhile, China has continuously expanded the catalogue of encouraged industries for foreign investment. The 2022 edition contains almost 20% more items than the previous one.

China builds its pilot FTZs and free trade ports at a faster pace. During the review period, China established a new pilot FTZ in Xinjiang. Altogether there are 22 such zones across the country. Higher-standard opening-up measures are implemented in the FTZs and free trade ports, in terms of trade, investment, finance and movement of people. These practices offer experience for nationwide implementation.

China further liberalizes trade through free trade areas. During the review period, the RCEP agreement, the world’s largest FTA in terms of population and trade volume, entered into full force. China signed, upgraded and implemented bilateral FTAs with many trading partners. China has also applied to join the CPTPP and DEPA to pursue high-level institutional opening-up.

3. China is committed to deepening reform for sustainable development.

China enabled the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, better combined an efficient market and a well-functioning government, and promoted innovation-driven, green and inclusive development.

China has further improved its market economy. We deepened reform of state-owned capital and SOEs and facilitated development of the private sector. The fiscal and taxation system has been improved to ensure inclusive benefits for more businesses, especially MSMEs. The formation of a unified national market is undergoing. This could facilitate smooth flows of goods, factors of production and resources on a larger scale. China implements strategy of expanding domestic demand to boost consumption and investment at home. China optimized competition laws and regulations, comprehensively improved IPR protection, management and services, and kept fine-tuning its unified, open, competitive and orderly market system.

China pursues a transition toward green and low-carbon development through technological innovation. China worked to develop the statistics system and cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. It encouraged technological innovation to help achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Take the new energy industry as an example. From 2016 to 2022, of the 558,000 patented green and low-carbon technological inventions around the world, 178,000, or 31.9%, were granted to Chinese patent holders, with an average annual growth of 12.5%, far outpacing the overall global growth rate of 2.5%. China’s innovative technology has lowered the cost of green transition and contributed to global green and low-carbon development.

China strives to make the economy work for more people. Since achieving the goal of elimination of extreme poverty, China has continued to revitalize rural areas. Infrastructure was enhanced, and rural commercial system was developed through e-commerce. In 2023, rural online retail sales amounted to 2.49 trillion yuan. Thanks to industrial development and job creation, the disposable income per capita of rural residents grew by 7.6%, which was 1.5 percentage points higher than the national rate. In addition, China attaches great importance to promoting coordinated regional development and ensuring that women, persons with disabilities, senior citizens and other groups share the fruits of development.

4. China supports the WTO in playing a better role.

China practices true multilateralism. It supports the WTO reform in the right direction, the inclusive development of the multilateral trading system, and the lawful rights and interests of developing members.

China is fully and deeply engaged in WTO reform. China was the first major developing fishing country to ratify the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. China supports early conclusion of comprehensive and balanced fishery disciplines. China attaches great importance to agriculture negotiations, and calls for more fair and reasonable rules. China collaborated with more than 120 members to reach the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development, and will strive to incorporate the agreement into the legal framework of WTO at an early date. China has played a constructive role in e-commerce negotiations, and supports early conclusion of high-standard multilateral digital trade rules. China also actively promotes dispute settlement reform and supports a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all members as soon as possible.

China supports the WTO effectively responding to global challenges towards green, inclusive and sustainable development. To this end, China pushed for a decision on a TRIPs waiver of Covid vaccines. China is open to discussions on trade and environment, industrial subsidies and other topics in a constructive manner. China offers concrete support to the WTO in better addressing development issues, and engages actively in talks on new topics such as MSMEs and women’ economic empowerment, to allow multilateral trading rules to benefit more groups.

China supports inclusive development of the multilateral trading system. During the review period, China renewed its MoU on the China Program with the Secretariat three times and donated 1.44 million dollars to the program. With that, China has made a total donation of 5.64 million dollars, and it will continue to donate in the future. Meanwhile, China has been helping developing members better integrate into global value chains by means such as the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund.

As President Xi Jinping has stressed, the modernization China is pursuing is not for China alone; rather, China looks forward to shared modernization with all other countries, especially developing countries. China believes that to make that possible, we need to uphold economic globalization and multilateralism, and have sincere communication and cooperation, not unilateralism, protectionism, decoupling or unjustified bashing.

This year marks the WTO’s 30th anniversary. As a Chinese saying goes, “One should be able to establish himself at the age of thirty.” China stands ready to work with all members to help the multilateral trading system establish itself firm and steady, and make economic globalization more inclusive, balanced, and beneficial to all.

I’ll stop here and give the floor back to the discussant and members.

Thank you.