*EPF104 06/16/2003
Excerpt: GAO Offers Free Database Covering China's WTO Commitments
(General Accounting Office June 13 correspondence) (820)

The General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a letter to members of Congress and executive branch agencies June 13 to introduce a new electronic database on the major components of China's World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments.

China's December 2001 accession to the WTO, the GAO letter says, means that the country "will have to undertake numerous actions over the next 10 years, ranging from reducing or eliminating tariffs to improving the transparency of trade-related rules and regulations."

"China's accession agreement is a set of legal documents totaling more than 800 pages," the letter notes.

"The flexibility and comprehensiveness of the (GAO) database can enable users to quickly and more efficiently analyze China's commitments," it continues.

According to the GAO letter, the database is available to the public free of charge to assist "interested parties in analyzing, monitoring, and enforcing China's WTO commitments."

Copies of the GAO letter and access to the database are available on the GAO Web site at: http://www.gao.gov.

Following is an excerpt of the June 13 GAO letter:

(begin excerpt)

GAO's Electronic Database of China's World Trade Organization Commitments.
GAO-03-797R, June 13.

Subject: GAO's Electronic Database of China's World Trade Organization
Commitments

China's December 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) signified that the world's seventh largest economy and the United State's fourth largest trading partner would be subject to the multilateral organization's trade liberalizing requirements. China's accession agreement is a set of legal documents totaling more than 800 pages. In order to fulfill its WTO commitments, China will have to undertake numerous actions over the next 10 years, ranging from reducing or eliminating tariffs to improving the transparency of trade-related rules and regulations.

An understanding of the terms of China's WTO accession is essential to judging whether China is adhering to these commitments. On October 3, 2002, we issued a report to you entitled World Trade Organization: Analysis of China's Commitments to Other Members, GAO-03-4. That report analyzed the agreement between China and WTO members, including the United States, that allowed China to accede to the WTO. The agreement sets forth China's commitments -- or legally binding pledges -- to other WTO members and describes how China will adhere to the organization's underlying agreements, principles, rules, and specific procedures. Because of the length and complexity of the accession agreement, we created an electronic database of the major components of the agreement in order to conduct our analysis. We are releasing this database publicly today to assist members of Congress and their staffs, U.S. executive branch agencies, and other interested parties in analyzing, monitoring, and enforcing China's WTO commitments.

Users can search the database to identify China's WTO commitments and to access some of the key results of our analysis as described in our October 2002 report. In our analysis, we identified nearly 700 individual commitments concerning how China is expected to reform its trade regime, as well as commitments that liberalize market access for more than 7,000 goods and nine broad services sectors. The database allows users to search the more than 800 pages of the agreement based on broad subject areas (such as intellectual property rights or import regulation) or on specific key words, sectors, and products (such as transparency, agriculture, or automobiles). It combines information on commitments China made relating to tariffs and nontariff measures (such as quotas) into one source so that users can quickly identify all the different types of barriers that foreign products face. The database also allows users to search China's commitments relating to services based on a specific sector, mode of delivery, or the types of limitations that China specified (such as limitations that require foreign service providers to partner with a Chinese company). In summary, the flexibility and comprehensiveness of the database can enable users to quickly and more efficiently analyze China's commitments.

Background

In recognizing the scope and importance of China's commitments, Congress has provided significant resources to executive branch agencies to enhance the government's ability to monitor and enforce China's compliance with its accession agreement. Monitoring and enforcing China's compliance has proved to be a complex and challenging task, as demonstrated by our recent report, World Trade Organization: First-Year U.S. Efforts to Monitor China's Compliance, GAO-03-461. Those who monitor China's compliance with its accession agreement can benefit from having access to useful tools to identify and study particular obligations. Our database is one such tool that may be of use in your own efforts, as well as those of the executive branch, other WTO members, and the U.S. business community.

Enclosure I provides a brief description of our database and how to download it. Enclosure II provides a brief summary of our analysis and some minor modifications we made to the classification of certain commitments.

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(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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