Agence France Presse | March 31, 2000
BRUSSELS - The European Union remained confident Friday of reaching a trade accord with China by the end of April, despite the collapse of the latest round of talks in Beijing.
"There is a process, and it is a process which is advancing," a European Commission spokesman said as chief EU negotiator Pascal Lamy and his 20-strong team headed back to Brussels.
He said "some progress" had been made in the four days of talks, even if they did not produce the vital agreement Beijing needs to seal its 14-year attempt to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"We understand the talks have been fruitful," the spokesman said, adding, "There are still obviously some issues on which agreement was not reached. I'm not going to say where these were."
He noted the Chinese side had left the door open, inviting Lamy back to Beijing, but that no date had been fixed.
"We aren't too worried," said an EU diplomat. Lamy "will be going back, and we're hopeful for an agreement by the end of April."
The EU is seeking to forge an agreement to open up China's vast market of 1.25 billion people to European businesses, and supports China's bid for WTO membership.
The Europeans particularly have their eye on China's telecommunications market, and want a controlling interest in the cellular telephone sector, greater than the 49 percent interest the Chinese yielded to the Americans.
Europe, with telecoms giants Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden, is particularly strong in the mobile phone market.
The EU diplomat said the EU mobile phone demands were "a big bite for the Chinese to swallow.
"I'm not sure they completely understood what the Europeans want," he added.
The Europeans were burned last year when Beijing vetoed joint ventures between Unicom, the country's second-leading telecoms operator, and 40 foreign firms that had been set up through a regulatory loophole.
The EU is also seeking representation in China's financial sector, particularly insurance. And it wants wants China to lower customs duties on European agricultural and pharmaceutical imports.
A European source figured the Chinese trade negotiators had little maneuvering room on European demands for easing state monopolies on tobacco, oil seeds and fertilizers.
The source said telecommunications and the automobile industry had also undoubtedly been sticking points in the latest round of talks.
The EU is the last of China's major trade partners not to have a signed a bilateral market opening deal, a prerequisite for China to successfully end its 14-year bid to enter the Geneva-based WTO.
After it, there will still remain nine countries for China to deal with, but those negotiations were envisioned as easy compared with those with the EU, which represents 15 countries, each with its own demands.
Results of the negotiations would still require approval of the respective governing bodies, and in the cases of the EU Council of Ministers and the US Congress, that promised to be more than just a formality.Agence France Presse:
