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2002年6月WTO对印度贸易政策审议-中国代表团的发言(英文)
             Statement of the Chinese Delegation
             at the WTO Trade Policy Review of India
                   June 19, 2002

Madam Chair:

  First of all, let me join other delegations in welcoming the Indian delegation headed by H.E. Mr. Chatterjee and indeed my delegation is very pleased to join this review process of the trade policy of India. India is one of the biggest developing countries, and it is the largest trading partner of China in South Asia. We hope that through this review, a better understanding of India’s trade policy and the future direction in which it will evolve will be reached, and it is also our hope that this kind of understanding will contribute to the further expansion of trade between our two countries.

  Madam Chair, we noticed with pleasure that the macro-economic environment of India continues to develop in a sound direction, as reflected in both the reports of the Indian Government and the Secretariat. We know that for a developing country with a huge population, reform is never an easy task. We agree with the observation in both the reports that the continued structural reform, including the efforts in trade liberalization of the Indian Government, is an important factor behind the achievement of such a fast development. We are particularly interested in the concrete measures and efforts mentioned in the Indian Government report, including removal of quantitative restrictions for imports, reforms in tax administration, foreign investment regime, industrial licensing regime and infrastructure. It is our hope that the achievements made so far will further encourage the Indian Government to continue its efforts in structural reform and trade liberalization.

  Madam Chair, the concrete measures and efforts mentioned in the Indian Government report, as we see, provide new opportunities for further expansion of bilateral economic and trade relations between China and India. Our two countries are complementary in a lot of economic and trade areas. Chinese enterprises have comparative advantages in quite a number of infrastructure sectors such as roads, ports and power which are identified in the Indian Government report. My Government believes that despite of the two-digit fast development of the bilateral trade in the past few years, the bilateral trade volume is still far from comparable with the economic weight, size and magnitude of our two countries. Bilateral trade between our two countries, according to our statistics, stood at 3.6 billion US dollars last year. We believe that there are great potentials to be explored jointly by our two sides. It is therefore our sincere hope that mutual trust and understanding could be further increased between the businesses as well as the governments of our two countries, so that the potentials could be realized at an early date to further promote the mutually beneficial economic and trade relations.

  Madam Chair, while acknowledging the efforts of the Indian Government in structural reform and trade liberalization, we noticed with concern some new development in India’s trade policy, for example, the increased use of anti-dumping measures. The statistics (calculation ways maybe different in this regard from the statistics mentioned in the Secretariat report) we have at hand tells that since 1992, India has initiated altogether 121 anti-dumping cases, of which 51 involved Chinese products. Furthermore, investigation procedures seem problematic. In quite a number cases Chinese enterprises are not given sufficient amount of time to respond or to prepare for hearings. In some cases, determination of injury or threat of injury, in our view, do not have convincing evidence. Taking this opportunity to register our concerns in this regard, we are eager to receive clarifications from our Indian colleagues.

  Madam Chair, another issue that my delegation would also like to reflect is the transparency issue. We are not sure if this has sufficiently been reflected somewhere in either of the reports, but my delegation believes that this is an important issue worthy of mentioning because our enterprises complains often about their unpleasant experiences in the Indian market. We hope to see concrete efforts from the Indian government, both at the central and state government levels.

  Madam Chair, from the trade policy point of view, tariff now is one of the major barriers to trade in the Indian market. Our industries are very concerned with the high tariff rates in India in such sectors as motor-cycles, household appliances, textiles and clothing. We hopes that special efforts in the tariff area can be made by the Indian Government in its further pursuit of structural reform and trade liberalization goals, particularly in the framework of the market access negotiations in the ongoing new round multilateral negotiations.

  Thank you, Madam Chair.
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