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Beijing vows to follow WTO rules

A magazine vendor waits for customers at a news stand in Beijing yesterday. The EU and the US have filed complaints at the WTO over Chinese restrictions on foreign financial news providers working in the country. PHOTO: AFP

China said yesterday that it will follow WTO rules in settling disputes with the US and Europe over restraints on access to its booming market for financial information services but had no comment on the content of the complaints.

Beijing "respects the choices" of other WTO members, the Commerce Ministry said in a brief statement. It was China's first comment on the WTO cases filed on Monday in Geneva. The new disputes add to tensions with Beijing over its swelling trade surplus with the US and Europe.

The US and the EU demanded that Beijing ease rules that they say boost its Xinhua news agency at the expense of rivals such as Reuters Group PLC, Dow Jones & Co and Bloomberg LP.

The request triggers a 60-day consultation period. It that fails to resolve the dispute, Washington and Brussels can ask the WTO to launch a formal investigation. The process can take years before the WTO approves retaliatory action.

"The Chinese side will conscientiously study the request for consultations and will deal with this matter according to WTO dispute resolution procedures," the ministry said in the four-sentence statement.

It did not respond to the content of the US and EU complaints.

The US and the EU say China violated its free-trade pledges by imposing rules 18 months ago that require financial information providers to use a Xinhua-approved distributor. The only such entity currently approved is a Xinhua subsidiary.

Financial information services complain that Beijing is reneging on a 1996 commitment to let them to deal directly with banks and other customers in China. Under terms of its WTO entry, China promised not to close markets that it already had opened.

Demand for such services has grown rapidly as China's securities and other financial industries flourished in recent years.

Xinhua launched its own financial information service in June as part of efforts to turn itself into a modern media company, and US and EU officials have questioned how it can act as both regulator and competitor of foreign services.

The EU has become increasingly vocal about China's trade gap. China's trade surplus with the EU surged by 42 percent in January over the year-earlier period, Chinese government figures show.

Last month, in a case brought by the US, the EU and Canada, a WTO panel ruled that Beijing improperly used tax policy to restrict imports of auto parts.

The US also is pursuing WTO cases over Chinese product piracy and access to China's market for books, CDs and DVDs. An EU panel is reviewing complaints of dumping of Chinese-made screws for furniture and autos.
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