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EU's Lamy says to go to China for WTO talks

KYOTO: The European Union's trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, said on Thursday he would soon go to China to resume talks on its application to join the World Trade Organisation.

"I myself will be going to China in the coming weeks in order to try and push this forward," he told a conference of EU and Japanese journalists by videolink from Brussels. Last month, a round of intensive negotiations in Beijing between China and the European Union on the Asian giant's 14-year quest to join the WTO ended with no agreement.

Lamy declined to spell out the stumbling blocks but said progress needed to be made first on a number of technical issues before the EU and China could concentrate on the non-technical aspects of the talks.

"I am confident that we will be going in this direction," he said.

He described the negotiations as difficult but said Beijing and Brussels were united in wanting China to join the WTO.

The 15-nation EU is the biggest trade power that has yet to reach a market-opening agreement with China to allow it to join the 135-member WTO. The United States, Japan, Canada and many other countries reached separate agreements with Beijing last year.-Reuters