2004年10月WTO对欧盟贸易政策审议-中国政府的问题和评论（英文）
WTO Trade Policy Review of EU
Comments and Questions from China
October 25 and 27, 2004
Anti-dumping
The method of “analogy country” is widely used by the EC to calculate the dumping margin in the antidumping cases. This practice is discriminative in nature and denies the comparative advantage of the Chinese enterprises. China
is concerned with the practice of the EC in choosing the analogy country. Chinese enterprises’ pleas over the choice of the analogy country are usually not accepted by the EC. These practices in antidumping have caused great concerns among Chinese enterprises.
1. Please provide the legal basis and exact criteria for selecting “analogy country” in the anti-dumping investigations by the EC.
2. In the antidumping case of 35 types of textile products, the EC chose Mexico and refused to accept Chinese enterprises’ request for using Thailand as the analogy country. Please provide the rationale for its decision. Does it relate to, e.g., the level of development of the countries concerned, or the respective production processes, or the comparability of the products, or the comparability of the respective industries?
3. The EC investigation authorities had chosen US and Japan as analogy countries for some Chinese cases. It is clear that countries such as US and Japan are not at a similar level of development as China and that to take the domestic prices in those countries as a benchmark for the normal value in China is certainly not relevant. Please explain the EC’s rationale of the decisions for selecting these analogy countries for anti-dumping investigations cases against China?
4. Please provide the details on how the EC investigation authorities select an analogy country and obtain relevant information from the enterprises of that country with regard to a particular case. Please explain whether the EC provides the information promptly to the victim enterprises of the specific cases. If not, why?
5. Could the EC justify the consistency of 5 criteria of the EC market economy conditions with the rules of WTO Anti-dumping Agreement? Please also explain the rationale of the 5 criteria.
EC Enlargement
After enlargement of the EC, the legal basis on which trade remedy measures were taken prior to the enlargement is not necessarily applicable to each and every case. However, the EC still decided that “the trade remedy measures in force in the EC-15 would apply for the enlarged EC-25”. Therefore, the automatic application of the existing trade remedy measures by the new member states is not fully in line with GATT 1994, Agreement on Anti-dumping Measures and Agreement on Safeguards.
6. How does the EC justify the consistency, if any, of the automatic application of these measures with the related WTO provisions? Please provide the relevant legal basis.
7. The EC intends to deal with the issue of automatic application of trade remedy measures by making "reviews" as stipulated in the related WTO Agreements. Please explain the rationale behind this approach. Is the EC considering any other approaches to address Members’ concerns in this regard?
8. Does the EC intend to conduct reviews of the injury determinations of all the trade remedy measures already taken in EC-15 and those under investigations after the enlargement so as to decide whether that these determinations still remain valid and the relevant trade remedy measures will continue to be imposed? If so, have such reviews begun?
9. Will the EC consider any positive response to any request for review of the injury determination of a case upon enlargement without a parallel request to review the appropriate level of the related duties? If the EC receives a request for a review of the injury determination only, will it self-initiate an accompanying review of the related level of duties? Please explain the legal basis for the EC’s policy in this regard.
10.The EC has expressed that the exporters may request suspension of measures on the basis that injury would not be likely to recur after the EC enlargement. Could the EC elaborate on what procedures are envisaged? What are the evidentiary requirements relating to this request?
11. Article XXIV: 5(a) of GATT 1994 provides that duties and other regulations of commerce imposed at the establishment of any customs union shall not on the whole be higher or more restrictive than the general incidence of the duties and other regulations of commerce applicable in the constituent territories prior to the formation of such a union. Automatic application of the existing trade remedy measures to imports to the ten new member countries would make their duties and other regulations of commerce higher or more restrictive, thus making the application of these measures to those ten countries not in compliance with Article XXIV: 5(a). How can this current practice of the EC be justified?
12. How does the EC plan to ensure that the Uruguay Round export subsidy commitments of both the EC-15 and the ten new member states are met with the enlargement of the EC? Please also provide legal justification for the methodology the EC intends to use, if any.
Trade remedy measures related to textiles and clothing
China appreciates the notification that EC will eliminate all the existing restrictions on the import of textiles and clothing products from 1 January 2005 in accordance with the requirement of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) as notified to the WTO. However, China also notice with concern that there are signs of increasing use of trade remedies in EC targeted at textiles and clothing products after those products are fully integrated into the normal GATT rules and disciplines. For example, the EC has announced to make its trade remedy regulations more “user-friendly” in the textiles and clothing sector after 2005. Such a measure will definitely affect the legitimate benefits that all the developing members of WTO including China who are entitled to gain after the expiration of ATC.
13. How will the EC act to avoid abuse of trade remedy measures against import of textiles and clothing products after the elimination of the import quotas?
14. In particular, how will the EC fulfill its commitments in the Doha Ministerial Decision to exercise particular consideration before initiating investigations in the context of anti-dumping remedies on textile and clothing exports from developing members previously subject to quantitative restrictions under the ATC for a period of two years following full integration of the sector into the GATT rules?
Customs administrative procedures
15. Please clarify whether and when the EC will fully implement uniform management system among the 25 EC members on uniformed customs administrative procedures, e.g. on duty collection disputes and appeals. Please provide relevant legal documents if there are any.
SPS/TBT measures
There are a great variety of technical regulations and standards in the EC which are very strict and subject to frequent revision. Although they were made under the claimed purpose of protection of human health and life safety, as well as the consumers’ interests, the inappropriate application would lead to trade protectionism, which would directly or indirectly affect negatively the international trade, especially the trade of the developing countries of which the development level far lags behind the developed countries. Hence, the superficial equality conceals the factual unfairness.
• The EC CR standard on lighters
In May 2002, the European Standardization Committee published the standard of lighters [i.e. EN: 13869, abbreviated as CR], which stipulated that all prices of one-off lighters less than 2.00 EURO have to be equipped with safe device against children’ ignition. However, it is appreciated that the EC decided to deter the entry into force of the CR standard.
16、Please provide the justification of the practice as to linking the product safety with the product price.
17、Please explain how is the standard consistent with the article 2.2 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade.
• REACH
The EC published the draft of the “Practice of the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of the Chemical Products”[hereafter referred as to the “REACH”]. According to the provision on the “registration” in the draft regulation, manufacturers of about 30,000 chemical products, covering over almost all chemical products as well as down-stream products, will be required to register, and if the manufacturers fail to fulfill the registration in time, their products would not be able to be sold in the EC market.
The cost of the registration and testing provided in the draft REACH is very high. The re-registration, evaluation and authorization of the known chemical products will cost considerable amount of resources. The limitation on the definition of the “manufacturer” will cause discriminative treatment to the manufacturers from the third countries, which may export chemical products to the EC, and lead to the failure in protecting the intellectual property rights of these manufacturers in an equal manner. The method of “one registration by each manufacturer or importer” applied according to the draft REACH is more trade restrictive than the method of “One Registration each Substance” which was used by the EC preciously. The EC’s new regulations on chemical products will possibly result in the transfer of the raw material industry with low-added value and high pollution into the developing countries. Therefore we strongly urge the EC to carry out a careful evaluation of the negative impact on the developing countries of the implementation of the REACH regulations.
18. We would appreciate it if the EC could explain the consistency, if any, of the regulation with article 2.2 in the WTO “Agreement on the Technical Barriers to Trade”.
19. Please explain why the management system of “One Registration each Substance” which is of less restriction on trade than the “One registration per manufacturer or importer” method provided in the REACH, can not sufficiently achieve the purpose of the protection of human, and animal health and life, as well as the environment?
20. Please explain how to ensure that the requirements set out by the REACH will not exceed the extent necessary to serve its legislative objective, assumed that all of these objectives are justified.
21. Please explain how the REACH is consistent with article 12.3 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade?
22. Please provide information on whether the physical testing and/or registration can be operated in countries other than the EC countries? If yes, please clarify the detailed terms and procedures?
23. Article 6.1 of the REACH stipulates that “the manufacturer, or importer, whose articles contain the substances in total amount higher or equal to 1T/year”, is requested to be registered. This is in fact a requirement to the manufacturer to prove that no risks exist in the chemical substances of their products, instead of the case that the administrative authorities bear the burden to indicate the existence of the risks. Bearing in mind that certain chemical substances have not been proved to contain any risks in their long-term application, could the EC please clarify if this reversed burden of proof is necessary to meet the legal objective?
• The testing method of pesticide residues in tea
EC has established the residue limit level in tea on more than 153 pesticides. According to the principles of the risk evaluation system, the MRLs of the chemical substance in food should be assessed as per Individual Intake in a Day. As the tea is normally prepared with hot water, the MRLs should be assessed according to the release amount of the pesticide residues in the hot water. However, the EC regulates that the test on the limit level of pesticide residues in tea is carried out on the samples of tea leaves instead of on the release amount in the hot water. This testing method leads to a false conclusion that the tea imported contains excessive level of pesticide residues,.
24. Please explain the consistency, if any, of this testing method with the articles 5.1 and 5.4 of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of WTO and the provisions of its Appendix C ?
• Directive of the Product Ecology Design (Draft)
In August 1, 2003, the European Commission approved the “Directive of the Product Ecology Design”(Draft). The draft introduced the concept of the “evaluation of effect on the environment by the lifecycle”, establishing that the manufacturers have to make the eligible conformity assessment on and affix the “CE” marking to their products. Otherwise, the products are not allowed to enter into the EC’s market. The above measure will considerably increase the costs of the manufacturers. In addition, the relevant intellectual property and know-how will possibly subject to risks. The draft directive stipulated that if the manufacturers are the members of the “EC Ecology Management and Review Plan”, or their products have been granted an ecological label by EC, they will be considered as consistent with the relevant requirements. However, the manufacturers from non-EC countries are usually not able to participate in the Plan and therefore can not be exempted from the requirements. In fact, the EC products and its manufacturers are enjoying an advantage over those non-EC products and manufacturers which, as a result, lead to discrimination towards the manufacturers and products outside the EC’s territory.
25、Please clarify how the EC can avoid this discriminative practice in the implementation of the Directive.
• The WEEE Directive and the ROHS Directive
EC published the EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and EC Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) in the Official Journal of the European Union on February 13, 2003.
26. Please clarify the consistency, if any, between these regulations and Article 2.2 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade?
27. Please provide the legislations and their status of implementation of the various Member States of EC on this issue. Does EC plan to provide guidelines to the non-EC enterprises for their entry into the EC market?
28. Please provide the information on the recent developments of the research conducted by the EC on the substitute materials to the 6 nocuous chemicals provided by the ROHS. If possible, please provide a list of the EC’s enterprises capable of recycling such 6 chemicals.
29. Please provide the testing method of these 6 nocuous chemicals.
Subsidies on Agricultural Products
•Variable duties on imported agricultural products
The imposition of variable duties on imported agricultural products negatively affects the fair competition between imported and domestic agricultural products, and impairs the competitiveness of agricultural products from other WTO Members on the EC market.
30. Please clarify the consistency, if any, between the practices of imposing variable duties on imported agricultural products and the objective of the WTO to establish a fair and market-oriented trading system.
• Domestic Support
Although the EC has reduced the domestic support by certain degree, the total amount of subsidies remains high. Meanwhile, the new Common Agricultural Policy still provides huge subsidies related to or based on prices, volume of production and farming acreage.
31. Please indicate what measures of real effect the EC is planning to take in order to reduce its total AMS.
Trade in services
• Market access of the banking services
The financial administrative agency in a member state of the EC governs the branch of a bank from a WTO developing Member the same way as the subsidiary of a bank, which requires the branch to satisfy the capital sufficiency rate requirement and to proportionate its credit business to its own capital scale. However, this requirement is not applied to the branches of the banks from developed Members. Besides, a set of specific qualification requirements are imposed on the executives of the banks which are not from the European Economic Zone. The requirement has negative impact onto the personnel placement and job arrangement of the foreign commercial banks.
32. Please explain the rationality of these requirements.
•Other issues in the area of trade in Service
33. The EC has maintained a large number of MFN exemptions in trade in services, making itself virtually one of the Members with the largest MFN exemptions. It appears to be asymmetrical with the EC’s leading player role in the WTO which is based on MFN. Will the EC attempt to reduce the number of its MFN exemptions unilaterally or in the context of the current services negotiations?
34. The EC has notified to the Council for Trade in Services that with the EC enlargement which took place respectively in 1995 and 2004, EC will extend its MFN exemptions in the Uruguay Round to cover those new member states. So far the EC has not invoked the relevant WTO procedures to justify its extension of MFN exemptions. We would like to know when the EC will start the WTO process in this regard and which procedures the EC will resort to?
35. In the constructions services, the EC tends to bias towards the use of construction service providers coming from its neighboring countries. Has the EC got any plan to liberalize its restrictions against the use of such service providers coming from other regions?
36. The criteria and administrative procedures of some of the EC member states governing the entry of natural persons who wish to provide services to their clients are unnecessarily burdensome and appear to be unreasonable. Will those criteria and procedures be reviewed and improved in such a way that they will make the EC’s commitments under the GATS practically effective and commercially meaningful?
Comments and Questions from China
October 25 and 27, 2004
Anti-dumping
The method of “analogy country” is widely used by the EC to calculate the dumping margin in the antidumping cases. This practice is discriminative in nature and denies the comparative advantage of the Chinese enterprises. China
is concerned with the practice of the EC in choosing the analogy country. Chinese enterprises’ pleas over the choice of the analogy country are usually not accepted by the EC. These practices in antidumping have caused great concerns among Chinese enterprises.
1. Please provide the legal basis and exact criteria for selecting “analogy country” in the anti-dumping investigations by the EC.
2. In the antidumping case of 35 types of textile products, the EC chose Mexico and refused to accept Chinese enterprises’ request for using Thailand as the analogy country. Please provide the rationale for its decision. Does it relate to, e.g., the level of development of the countries concerned, or the respective production processes, or the comparability of the products, or the comparability of the respective industries?
3. The EC investigation authorities had chosen US and Japan as analogy countries for some Chinese cases. It is clear that countries such as US and Japan are not at a similar level of development as China and that to take the domestic prices in those countries as a benchmark for the normal value in China is certainly not relevant. Please explain the EC’s rationale of the decisions for selecting these analogy countries for anti-dumping investigations cases against China?
4. Please provide the details on how the EC investigation authorities select an analogy country and obtain relevant information from the enterprises of that country with regard to a particular case. Please explain whether the EC provides the information promptly to the victim enterprises of the specific cases. If not, why?
5. Could the EC justify the consistency of 5 criteria of the EC market economy conditions with the rules of WTO Anti-dumping Agreement? Please also explain the rationale of the 5 criteria.
EC Enlargement
After enlargement of the EC, the legal basis on which trade remedy measures were taken prior to the enlargement is not necessarily applicable to each and every case. However, the EC still decided that “the trade remedy measures in force in the EC-15 would apply for the enlarged EC-25”. Therefore, the automatic application of the existing trade remedy measures by the new member states is not fully in line with GATT 1994, Agreement on Anti-dumping Measures and Agreement on Safeguards.
6. How does the EC justify the consistency, if any, of the automatic application of these measures with the related WTO provisions? Please provide the relevant legal basis.
7. The EC intends to deal with the issue of automatic application of trade remedy measures by making "reviews" as stipulated in the related WTO Agreements. Please explain the rationale behind this approach. Is the EC considering any other approaches to address Members’ concerns in this regard?
8. Does the EC intend to conduct reviews of the injury determinations of all the trade remedy measures already taken in EC-15 and those under investigations after the enlargement so as to decide whether that these determinations still remain valid and the relevant trade remedy measures will continue to be imposed? If so, have such reviews begun?
9. Will the EC consider any positive response to any request for review of the injury determination of a case upon enlargement without a parallel request to review the appropriate level of the related duties? If the EC receives a request for a review of the injury determination only, will it self-initiate an accompanying review of the related level of duties? Please explain the legal basis for the EC’s policy in this regard.
10.The EC has expressed that the exporters may request suspension of measures on the basis that injury would not be likely to recur after the EC enlargement. Could the EC elaborate on what procedures are envisaged? What are the evidentiary requirements relating to this request?
11. Article XXIV: 5(a) of GATT 1994 provides that duties and other regulations of commerce imposed at the establishment of any customs union shall not on the whole be higher or more restrictive than the general incidence of the duties and other regulations of commerce applicable in the constituent territories prior to the formation of such a union. Automatic application of the existing trade remedy measures to imports to the ten new member countries would make their duties and other regulations of commerce higher or more restrictive, thus making the application of these measures to those ten countries not in compliance with Article XXIV: 5(a). How can this current practice of the EC be justified?
12. How does the EC plan to ensure that the Uruguay Round export subsidy commitments of both the EC-15 and the ten new member states are met with the enlargement of the EC? Please also provide legal justification for the methodology the EC intends to use, if any.
Trade remedy measures related to textiles and clothing
China appreciates the notification that EC will eliminate all the existing restrictions on the import of textiles and clothing products from 1 January 2005 in accordance with the requirement of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) as notified to the WTO. However, China also notice with concern that there are signs of increasing use of trade remedies in EC targeted at textiles and clothing products after those products are fully integrated into the normal GATT rules and disciplines. For example, the EC has announced to make its trade remedy regulations more “user-friendly” in the textiles and clothing sector after 2005. Such a measure will definitely affect the legitimate benefits that all the developing members of WTO including China who are entitled to gain after the expiration of ATC.
13. How will the EC act to avoid abuse of trade remedy measures against import of textiles and clothing products after the elimination of the import quotas?
14. In particular, how will the EC fulfill its commitments in the Doha Ministerial Decision to exercise particular consideration before initiating investigations in the context of anti-dumping remedies on textile and clothing exports from developing members previously subject to quantitative restrictions under the ATC for a period of two years following full integration of the sector into the GATT rules?
Customs administrative procedures
15. Please clarify whether and when the EC will fully implement uniform management system among the 25 EC members on uniformed customs administrative procedures, e.g. on duty collection disputes and appeals. Please provide relevant legal documents if there are any.
SPS/TBT measures
There are a great variety of technical regulations and standards in the EC which are very strict and subject to frequent revision. Although they were made under the claimed purpose of protection of human health and life safety, as well as the consumers’ interests, the inappropriate application would lead to trade protectionism, which would directly or indirectly affect negatively the international trade, especially the trade of the developing countries of which the development level far lags behind the developed countries. Hence, the superficial equality conceals the factual unfairness.
• The EC CR standard on lighters
In May 2002, the European Standardization Committee published the standard of lighters [i.e. EN: 13869, abbreviated as CR], which stipulated that all prices of one-off lighters less than 2.00 EURO have to be equipped with safe device against children’ ignition. However, it is appreciated that the EC decided to deter the entry into force of the CR standard.
16、Please provide the justification of the practice as to linking the product safety with the product price.
17、Please explain how is the standard consistent with the article 2.2 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade.
• REACH
The EC published the draft of the “Practice of the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of the Chemical Products”[hereafter referred as to the “REACH”]. According to the provision on the “registration” in the draft regulation, manufacturers of about 30,000 chemical products, covering over almost all chemical products as well as down-stream products, will be required to register, and if the manufacturers fail to fulfill the registration in time, their products would not be able to be sold in the EC market.
The cost of the registration and testing provided in the draft REACH is very high. The re-registration, evaluation and authorization of the known chemical products will cost considerable amount of resources. The limitation on the definition of the “manufacturer” will cause discriminative treatment to the manufacturers from the third countries, which may export chemical products to the EC, and lead to the failure in protecting the intellectual property rights of these manufacturers in an equal manner. The method of “one registration by each manufacturer or importer” applied according to the draft REACH is more trade restrictive than the method of “One Registration each Substance” which was used by the EC preciously. The EC’s new regulations on chemical products will possibly result in the transfer of the raw material industry with low-added value and high pollution into the developing countries. Therefore we strongly urge the EC to carry out a careful evaluation of the negative impact on the developing countries of the implementation of the REACH regulations.
18. We would appreciate it if the EC could explain the consistency, if any, of the regulation with article 2.2 in the WTO “Agreement on the Technical Barriers to Trade”.
19. Please explain why the management system of “One Registration each Substance” which is of less restriction on trade than the “One registration per manufacturer or importer” method provided in the REACH, can not sufficiently achieve the purpose of the protection of human, and animal health and life, as well as the environment?
20. Please explain how to ensure that the requirements set out by the REACH will not exceed the extent necessary to serve its legislative objective, assumed that all of these objectives are justified.
21. Please explain how the REACH is consistent with article 12.3 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade?
22. Please provide information on whether the physical testing and/or registration can be operated in countries other than the EC countries? If yes, please clarify the detailed terms and procedures?
23. Article 6.1 of the REACH stipulates that “the manufacturer, or importer, whose articles contain the substances in total amount higher or equal to 1T/year”, is requested to be registered. This is in fact a requirement to the manufacturer to prove that no risks exist in the chemical substances of their products, instead of the case that the administrative authorities bear the burden to indicate the existence of the risks. Bearing in mind that certain chemical substances have not been proved to contain any risks in their long-term application, could the EC please clarify if this reversed burden of proof is necessary to meet the legal objective?
• The testing method of pesticide residues in tea
EC has established the residue limit level in tea on more than 153 pesticides. According to the principles of the risk evaluation system, the MRLs of the chemical substance in food should be assessed as per Individual Intake in a Day. As the tea is normally prepared with hot water, the MRLs should be assessed according to the release amount of the pesticide residues in the hot water. However, the EC regulates that the test on the limit level of pesticide residues in tea is carried out on the samples of tea leaves instead of on the release amount in the hot water. This testing method leads to a false conclusion that the tea imported contains excessive level of pesticide residues,.
24. Please explain the consistency, if any, of this testing method with the articles 5.1 and 5.4 of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of WTO and the provisions of its Appendix C ?
• Directive of the Product Ecology Design (Draft)
In August 1, 2003, the European Commission approved the “Directive of the Product Ecology Design”(Draft). The draft introduced the concept of the “evaluation of effect on the environment by the lifecycle”, establishing that the manufacturers have to make the eligible conformity assessment on and affix the “CE” marking to their products. Otherwise, the products are not allowed to enter into the EC’s market. The above measure will considerably increase the costs of the manufacturers. In addition, the relevant intellectual property and know-how will possibly subject to risks. The draft directive stipulated that if the manufacturers are the members of the “EC Ecology Management and Review Plan”, or their products have been granted an ecological label by EC, they will be considered as consistent with the relevant requirements. However, the manufacturers from non-EC countries are usually not able to participate in the Plan and therefore can not be exempted from the requirements. In fact, the EC products and its manufacturers are enjoying an advantage over those non-EC products and manufacturers which, as a result, lead to discrimination towards the manufacturers and products outside the EC’s territory.
25、Please clarify how the EC can avoid this discriminative practice in the implementation of the Directive.
• The WEEE Directive and the ROHS Directive
EC published the EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and EC Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) in the Official Journal of the European Union on February 13, 2003.
26. Please clarify the consistency, if any, between these regulations and Article 2.2 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers on Trade?
27. Please provide the legislations and their status of implementation of the various Member States of EC on this issue. Does EC plan to provide guidelines to the non-EC enterprises for their entry into the EC market?
28. Please provide the information on the recent developments of the research conducted by the EC on the substitute materials to the 6 nocuous chemicals provided by the ROHS. If possible, please provide a list of the EC’s enterprises capable of recycling such 6 chemicals.
29. Please provide the testing method of these 6 nocuous chemicals.
Subsidies on Agricultural Products
•Variable duties on imported agricultural products
The imposition of variable duties on imported agricultural products negatively affects the fair competition between imported and domestic agricultural products, and impairs the competitiveness of agricultural products from other WTO Members on the EC market.
30. Please clarify the consistency, if any, between the practices of imposing variable duties on imported agricultural products and the objective of the WTO to establish a fair and market-oriented trading system.
• Domestic Support
Although the EC has reduced the domestic support by certain degree, the total amount of subsidies remains high. Meanwhile, the new Common Agricultural Policy still provides huge subsidies related to or based on prices, volume of production and farming acreage.
31. Please indicate what measures of real effect the EC is planning to take in order to reduce its total AMS.
Trade in services
• Market access of the banking services
The financial administrative agency in a member state of the EC governs the branch of a bank from a WTO developing Member the same way as the subsidiary of a bank, which requires the branch to satisfy the capital sufficiency rate requirement and to proportionate its credit business to its own capital scale. However, this requirement is not applied to the branches of the banks from developed Members. Besides, a set of specific qualification requirements are imposed on the executives of the banks which are not from the European Economic Zone. The requirement has negative impact onto the personnel placement and job arrangement of the foreign commercial banks.
32. Please explain the rationality of these requirements.
•Other issues in the area of trade in Service
33. The EC has maintained a large number of MFN exemptions in trade in services, making itself virtually one of the Members with the largest MFN exemptions. It appears to be asymmetrical with the EC’s leading player role in the WTO which is based on MFN. Will the EC attempt to reduce the number of its MFN exemptions unilaterally or in the context of the current services negotiations?
34. The EC has notified to the Council for Trade in Services that with the EC enlargement which took place respectively in 1995 and 2004, EC will extend its MFN exemptions in the Uruguay Round to cover those new member states. So far the EC has not invoked the relevant WTO procedures to justify its extension of MFN exemptions. We would like to know when the EC will start the WTO process in this regard and which procedures the EC will resort to?
35. In the constructions services, the EC tends to bias towards the use of construction service providers coming from its neighboring countries. Has the EC got any plan to liberalize its restrictions against the use of such service providers coming from other regions?
36. The criteria and administrative procedures of some of the EC member states governing the entry of natural persons who wish to provide services to their clients are unnecessarily burdensome and appear to be unreasonable. Will those criteria and procedures be reviewed and improved in such a way that they will make the EC’s commitments under the GATS practically effective and commercially meaningful?
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