Trade Compliance Center - Making America's Trade Agreements Work for You!

Reforms, including trade liberalization, have underpinned high growth but challenges remain

Structural reforms in China, including trade liberalization, have resulted in annual real GDP growth rates in excess of 10% over the past 4 years, rising per-capita income and poverty reduction. In the process, China has become the world’s third largest trader. Since its previous Review in 2006, China’s trade regime has continued on a liberalizing trend. Ongoing reform will help to sustain high growth in the face of a number of challenges including various economic imbalances, according to a WTO Secretariat report on the trade policies and practices of China.

The report highlights details about structural reforms, including in the financial and other sectors that have introduced more market-oriented measures aimed at achieving a more efficient allocation of resources. The report also notes that China has continued to be one of the largest recipients of inward FDI and has become a large provider of outward FDI, reflecting its increasing integration into the global economy.

However, the report identifies imbalances in the sources of growth in the economy, which is mainly driven by exports and investment rather than by consumption, a widening gap between savings and investment reflected in China’s growing current account surplus, and rising income inequality despite high GDP growth.

The WTO Secretariat report, along with a policy statement by the Government of China, will be the basis for the second TPR of China by the Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 21 and 23 May 2008.

• Secretariat report
> Contents and summary observations
> Economic environment
> Trade and investment regimes
> Trade policies and practices by measure
> Trade policies by sector
> Appendix tables

• Government report

• Revisions and Corrigenda of the above documents may be issued approximately 2 weeks after the meeting.

• Chairperson's concluding remarks

• Minutes of the meeting are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.

• Questions and answers by WTO Members are available approximately 6 weeks after the meeting.

• Note

Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member countries trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant developments that may have an impact on the global trading system are also monitored. For each review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents are then discussed by the WTOs full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). These documents and the proceedings of the TPRBs meetings are published shortly afterwards.

Print copies of previous TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Geneve 21 and through the on-line bookshop.

The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States.

United States: 9 and 11 June 2008
Oman: 25 and 27 June 2008
Singapore: 14 and 16 July 2008