The next round of negotiations between the EU and China on Beijing's bid to join the WTO is expected in the next two to three weeks, an EU spokesman said yesterday.
Following recent Chinese agreements with the US and Canada, the 15-nation EU is the most powerful trading bloc which has yet to conclude a bilateral deal with Beijing to allow it to enter the global trade body.
The EU and Chinese chief negotiators -- senior European Commission official Hans-Friedrich Beseler and Chinese deputy foreign trade minister Long Yongtu -- talked by telephone yesterday to discuss timing and the agenda for the next round of negotiations, Commission spokesman Peter Guilford said.
"There is as yet no specific date but you can assume that the next wave of technical negotiations will take place in the next two or three weeks," Guilford told the Commission's daily news briefing.
Guilford said later that the meeting, between teams led by Beseler and Long, would probably be held in Brussels.
EU officials expressed hope last month the next round of talks could be the last one, bringing China closer to its 13-year-old dream of joining the world trade body. Any WTO member has the right to discuss its trade concerns with applicant countries.
Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo will visit Brussels on Jan. 25 for talks with several European commissioners, including External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten and Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, Guilford said.
He said the visit by Wu, who he described as very senior in the Chinese government hierarchy, was not specifically to discuss the WTO "but no doubt Mr Lamy will reiterate the EU's position."
Wu will also meet Enterprise Commissioner Erkki Liikanen and Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio for talks on bilateral cooperation in science and technology and energy, Guilford said.
EU officials handed over a list of the EU's trade requests at a meeting in Seattle last month between Lamy and Chinese Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng.
At an EU-China summit in Beijing on Dec. 21, European Commission President Romano Prodi said the EU was ready to start negotiating a WTO deal with Beijing "as soon as China has taken examination of the European requests."
An EU source said yesterday he did not believe China had responded in writing to the EU requests but he said the EU's intention in handing over the list had been to make sure China was fully aware of the EU's wishes.
EU officials say the EU and the US share many of the same objectives on China's WTO membership terms.
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