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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (4766)	5/2/2005 8:54:50 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

Amid textile row, China names tough new trade chief Published: Monday, 2 May, 2005, 01:07 PM Doha Time BEIJING: Amid a series of simmering disputes with major trading partners, China yesterday announced the appointment of a veteran commerce official as the country’s top trade negotiator. Gao Hucheng, vice-minister of commerce, was given the crucial title at a time of unusual friction with the European Union and the US over textiles and intellectual property rights. The 54-year-old, a doctor of sociology and a fluent French speaker who once was a cement worker, will be in charge of a special office responsible for major trade negotiations, according to the Xinhua news agency. Publicised remarks by the ranking official suggest he will insist on legal rights for Chinese enterprises under the rules of the global trading system. “Chinese industries should strengthen their sense of law and self-protection,” he said in a recent speech, according to the commerce ministry’s website. “They should apply legal means such as anti-dumping to protect their legitimate rights,” he said, according to the text of the speech. The appointment could mark an effort by Beijing to better equip itself to withstand foreign pressure, and comes as the European Union announced it would launch a probe into soaring Chinese textile imports, the first step towards possible formal limits on some of those products. The probe covers nine categories of clothing - T-shirts, pullovers, blouses, stockings and socks, men’s trousers, women’s overcoats, brassieres, flax or ramie yarn and woven fabrics flax. EU textile producers are worried thousands of jobs could be lost if urgent action is not taken to stem a flood of Chinese clothing that was unleashed by the end of a 31-year-old global textiles quota system on January 1. Chinese textile imports into the EU have soared by as much as 534% for some garments since the end of the quota system, which is far beyond limits the European Commission considers tolerable. Gao’s appointment also comes in the wake of remarks by the new US trade representative, Rob Portman, vowing to “hit the ground running” in pressing China to act on a host of foreign complaints. China is also being accused by its western trading partners of massive copyright violations, despite a host of new regulations in the intellectual property rights field issued by Beijing in recent years. China said on Saturday it has “always worked hard” to protect copyrights, defending itself against a US decision to put it on a blacklist of countries allegedly guilty of “rampant” copyright abuses. “The Chinese government has all along attached importance to the protection of intellectual property rights,” said foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang. With the appointment of Gao, China has placed an experienced official with a diverse background in charge of its complex trade negotiations. His career path has taken him abroad, especially to France, for much of his adult life, making him a representative of a new generation of Chinese leaders with a cosmopolitan background. He was born in 1951 in northern Shanxi province and spent years during the Cultural Revolution as a worker at a cement factory, but eventually graduated with a French doctorate of sociology. During the latter half of the 1970s he was stationed in sub-Saharan Africa, before moving on to France, where he worked for the China Machinery Import & Export Corporation for five years in the 1980s. The 1990s saw him back home in China, the majority of the decade at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, which was later to become the Ministry of Commerce. His new title could catapult him to the ranks of China’s most recognised officials, as the position of top trade negotiator has previously been associated with near-celebrity status in China. This was especially the case in the late 1990s, when skilled diplomat Long Yongtu was the owner of the title and headed China’s last concerted effort to enter the World Trade Organisation. - AFP gulf-times.com