CRI听力:China Fulfills its WTO Promises

From 2001, when China was accessed to WTO through to the end of 2010, China has lowered its general tariff rates from 15.3 percent to 9.8 percent.

The cut in duty rates has led to more imports to China; with such imports making up for what China lacks and benefiting the Chinese people as a whole. Yang Hong is vice-president of the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation, a leading Chinese food stuff group.

"We import wheat species not grown or scarce in China. It not only meets the domestic demand but also boosts the foreign growers' confidence in the Chinese market."

In the past decade, electronic information industry, the first Chinese industry that entered the WTO has experienced the fastest growth.

Zhou Zixue, chief economist of Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says the huge market and manufacturing base provided by China during the first few years were the main contributions of China made to the WTO.

"The regulations laid down ten years ago were mainly by developed countries, who distributed most of resources among industries of low cost and high efficiency. After China entered WTO in 2001, a large number of multinational corporations began to transfer their manufacturing sectors to China and it was from then on that foreign funds began to accumulate in electronic information industry."

China's Ministry of Commerce reveals that the country has opened up almost its entire manufacturing sectors to foreign investment in the past decade. At the same time, foreigners can also invest in more than 100 service categories which include finance and telecommunications compared with the average level of 108 service sectors in the developed economies.

China's foreign trade in 2010 surpassed 30 trillion US dollars, a 140 percent growth higher than that of 2001.

WTO Director-General, Pascal Lamy spoke highly of China's performance saying that China's WTO accession not only brought significant changes to China, but also benefited other members and the whole world.

In November 2001, a WTO ministerial meeting in Doha accepted China as the organization's 143rd member.

For CRI, this is Wang Ling.