| US to drag China to WTO if promises not met | |
| Press Trust Of India / Washington December 29, 2008, 0:56 IST | |
The US has warned that it will drag China to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute settlement panel if the world’s fastest growing economy does not implement the commitments it made before joining the 153-member multilateral trade body.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) in a report to the Congress has said that despite the progress achieved in 2008, specific issues like Chinese government’s intervention continued to cause concern to the US and its industry.
It said the US would continue its efforts to ensure that China fully implements its commitments, including removal of the remaining trade and investment barriers and improvement in the IPR regime.
The USTR said it would take China to the WTO dispute resolution body if things do not improve.
“As the US has demonstrated on several occasions, when bilateral dialogue is not successful in resolving WTO-related concerns, the US will not hesitate to invoke the dispute settlement mechanism at the WTO,” the report said.
China had joined the WTO in December 2001 after making several commitments on opening its economy and complying with the rule-based multilateral system.
While the country has taken several steps over the last seven years to reform its economy, in some areas it appears that China has yet to fully implement important commitments.
Also “significant questions” have arisen about China’s adherence to its obligations.
On China’s record in implementing the Intellectual Property Rights, the USTR said, “Despite repeated anti-piracy campaigns and an increasing number of civil IPR cases in Chinese courts, counterfeiting and piracy remain at unacceptably high levels and continue to cause serious harm to US businesses across many sectors of the economy.”
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