China to Reopen Market to US Beef Exports
Action taken on key trade issues with China in senior-level meetings.
Compiled by staff
Published: Apr 12, 2006
Senior level officials from the United States and China met Tuesday. Key agreements include a decision by China to reopen its market to US beef exports and launch negotiations to join the WTO governmental procurement agreement.
Tuesday U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and United States Trade Ambassador Rob Portman met with Vice Premier Wu Yi for the 17th annual senior-level meeting of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. Commenced in 1983, the JCCT is an ongoing dialogue to address issues affecting US-China trade and investment.
China committed to addressing a number of U.S. trade concerns in three areas: enhancing access of U.S. companies and farmers and ranchers to the Chinese market; improving protection of intellectual property rights in China; and moving toward a transparent and market-oriented system of government procurement in China.
The Chinese agreed to the following: reopening its market to U.S. beef exports; launching negotiations to join the WTO government procurement agreement; requiring Chinese computers to use legal software; closing optical disk plants that produce pirated CDs and DVDs and stepped up enforcement of IPR; requiring all trade-related measures to be published in a single official journal; eliminating barriers to trade in medical devices; and the launching of a dialogue on the steel industry. These actions have resulted from extensive discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials over the past six months.
"I am pleased to announce that China conditionally agreed to resume imports of U.S. beef," says Johanns. "We will work quickly to finalize the terms of this market opening. China is an important market for U.S. beef, accounting for $100 million of our beef exports in 2003. This decision comes after lengthy technical discussions and is based on evidence that our safeguards work and that science supports the safety of U.S. beef."
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