December 23, 2013

China pledged on Friday (Dec 13) to ease restrictions on US beef imports as well as to speed up work on opening its market for government purchases of software and other goods.

Despite disputes over market access for goods from solar panels to genetically modified corn, the pledges came as American and Chinese envoys ended a meeting of the annual US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT).

A Chinese deputy commerce minister, Wang Chao, said at a news conference the two sides agreed to "promote US beef exports to China" but gave no details. A deputy agriculture ministry, Niu Dun, said the two sides will work on technical issues but gave no timetable for when full-scale imports might be allowed.

Due to fears of mad cow disease, Beijing banned US beef in 2003, however, it has promised in recent years to ease those restrictions but effectively maintained its ban.

Wang said Beijing also committed to submitting a new proposal next year to join the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), which extends the World Trade Organization's (WTO) free-trade principles to purchases by governments.

Government agencies, hospitals and other official entities in China are major purchasers of software and other goods. Business groups say extending the GPA to China could create multibillion-dollar new opportunities for foreign suppliers.

When it became a WTO member in 2001, Beijing promised to join the GPA, but the US and other governments complained its proposed terms were unrealistic. They would have kept large areas of government purchasing off-limits on security grounds and allowed Beijing to wait up to 18 years before implementing all of its promises.

Wang, the commerce official, said Beijing promised next year's offer would be in line with proposals by other countries. The JCCT, established in 1983, is meant to resolve conflicts over trade issues before they disrupt trade.

The US and China have one of the world's most active trade relationships, with total commerce of some US$500 billion a year, but ties are fraught with tension over Beijing's multibillion-dollar trade surpluses and complaints about market barriers.

On Friday (Dec 13), China's product quality agency announced it has rejected 12 batches of US corn totalling 545,000 tonnes that were found to contain an unapproved genetically modified strain.