Japan yesterday urged China to improve its trade practices, saying Beijing is slow to revise its laws to comply with WTO rules.
In its annual report on unfair trade practices, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry highlighted Japan's 15 most urgent problems in trade with China, the EU, the US and the 10-member ASEAN.
China, which joined the WTO in December 2001, alone accounted for seven of the 15 issues.
China "has many areas that need to be corrected, including the slowness of revising domestic laws and inconsistency and a lack of transparency in applying these laws," the report said.
"In particular, we have grave concerns over the following areas," it said, listing the seven problems, including higher Chinese taxes on semiconductor imports, lax control on pirated products, resort to anti-dumping measures and tariffs on imported photographic film.
The ministry said some 50 percent of Japanese firms are suffering financial damage due to illegally copied products from China and argued Beijing was doing little to tighten anti-piracy controls.
"The rampant production of pirated goods shows that there is no sign of improvement," it said.
China has mounted periodic campaigns to stamp out piracy for many years but the problem remains rampant, with copied films, music and software sold openly and largely with impunity.
On auto imports, the ministry said China is falling short of the WTO requirement that it increase import quotas on automobiles and auto parts by 15 percent per year after joining the global trade body.
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