China to attend WTO mini-ministerial meeting

China's Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said on Tuesday that China attaches great importance to the mini-ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, which will be held on Jan 25 during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2014 in Davos, Switzerland.

A Chinese delegation will attend the WTO conference, which is the first important meeting after the ninth Ministerial Conference, held in Bali, Indonesia, in December, and will discuss the post-Bali work plan, the implementation of the "early harvest" agreement of the decade-long Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations, Shen said.

The "early harvest" agreement, reached during the MC 9 and mainly referring to the lowering of tariffs on some products prior to reaching a full trade agreement, boosted confidence in the multilateral trade mechanism. It also showed that multilateral trade mechanisms are the top priority of every country's trade policy, Shen said.

The post-Bali work plan will mainly aim at advancing negotiations on the remaining issues of the Doha Round, Shen said.

He added that bilateral or regional trade agreements, together with multilateral agreements, will better advance the steady growth of global trade, but should follow open, inclusive and transparent principles rather than replacing or running against the multilateral trade system.