Beijing, December 3:

While few doubt the importance of the September 11 terrorist attacks, analysts say China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) three months later may eventually be seen as having even greater reverberations.

When China joined the WTO on December 11, 2001, it submitted to a universal set of rules, sig-ning off sovereignty it had defen-ded fiercely for millennia, said David Zweig at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technolog-y. “China basically accepted the fact that the outside world could tell it what it could and couldn’t do domestically,” said Zweig, the head of university’s Centre on China’s Transnational Relations.

“Unless the war on terror continues for a long time and has implications in terms of further foreign policy intervention by the US, then the long-term impact of China’s entry into

the WTO is greater,” he said. As the world’s most populous nation marks the fifth anniversary of its entry into the global trade body, it is time for both the 1.3 billion Chinese themselves and the rest of the world to take stock of the changes.

For the well-heeled resident of Beijing or Shanghai, the advantages of WTO membership are obvious: His imported Mercedes is cheaper; his local Citibank offers more services; his Wal-Mart sells a wider variety of products. But China’s entry into the WTO has not just created winners. Reduced tariffs on agricultural produce have threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of farmers. Beyond affecting the individual lives of the Chinese, the WTO has also profoundly and irreversibly changed the Chinese economy as a whole. “The biggest transformation has been in the volume of trade,” said Li Zhongzhou, chief analyst.

EU eyes FTA with Asia, Latin America

BRUSSELS: The European Commission is due to laun-ch plans for a ‘new generati-on’ of free trade agreements on Wednesday by seeking mandates for talks with ASEAN, South Korea and India as well as Andean and Central American nations. With the Doha round of negotiations stalled, the mandates highlight EU trade commissioner Peter Man-delson’s new trade strategy, based on a ‘more rigorous’ calculation of the possible economic gains from such deals. EU foreign ministers are to pronounce on the package on December 11, which would allow initial talks to get under way. — AFP