China's imminent entry into the World Trade Organization will benefit the Southeast Asia economy and the global economy as a whole, said incoming WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi in Hong Kong Monday.
Supachai, who is in Hong Kong as a guest speaker to the British Chamber of Commerce, predicted that China could join the WTO as early as 2001 and could be a full participant in the next round of WTO negotiations.
China's WTO membership will ensure more certainty of China's participation in the world trade system, said Supachai.
Supachai, who would take his post in September 2002, believed though China is getting the most-favored-nation treatment around the world, having China in the WTO would mean more certainty in China's participation in the world economy.
"China's WTO entry would be a boost to the world trading system, and that will be good for the Chinese economy itself and good for the rest of us," he said.
As a major economy in the world, Supachai said China can help to stabilize the world economic condition once it enters the WTO. The United States is now the major and the only driving force behind the economic growth around the world, and this is not good, he said.
"So if China comes to the scene with a sizable economy, one of the top ten economies in the world, it would be a major stabilizer, " said Supachai. He predicted China's market share in the world economy would grow in five years' time from 3.5 percent to 7 percent.
The WTO chief designate also believed China should become a bridge between the less developed and more advanced countries in the WTO, because "China knows how to cope with situations both in developing and developed countries."
"At home, China has some advanced economies in some coastal areas and poor economies in the western and northern parts," he said, adding that for this reason, "China would be able to understand the problems of the developing countries and also the more advanced countries'issues."
China's being a major participant in the global trading scene would open up new opportunities, particularly for countries in southeast Asia, said Supachai.
Though Southeast Asian countries may be losing some market shares to China's products, Supachai said "hopefully there will be new market shares to be earned in China itself" after China joins the WTO.
"China's WTO entry will open up new prospects for markets in Asia, particularly for Southeast Asian nations to expand," he said.
However, in the short term, only countries which are best prepared in Asia would be able to benefit from China's WTO entry, Supachai said.
(Xinhua 02/26/2001)
