China willing to promote trade calculation reforms

17  January 2013

BEIJING — Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said Wednesday that China is willing to actively push for reforms regarding the way global trade is calculated.

“As a major participant and beneficiary of globalization, China is a staunch supporter of the multilateral trading system and is willing to actively promote calculation reforms in world trade,” Gao said during an international symposium held in Beijing.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said that in the context of globalization, international capital has formed a global value chain through cross-border investment, off-shore trade and outsourcing. The emergence of the chain has brought about changes in the way trade is conducted, he said.

Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that despite profound changes in global trade, existing approaches to calculating global trade data still rely on old patterns that have misinterpreted countries of origin and failed to accurately portray the overall picture of global production.

Conventional statistical patterns have neglected the contributions made by nations in production, overcalculated trade volumes and failed to comprehensively show the influence of trade on employment and incomes, Gurria said, adding that they have to some extent misguided governments’ trade policies.

Gao said the global value chain is not only a calculation issue, but also concerns trade policymaking. It will have a profound impact on the orientation of the multilateral trading system and the creation of new international trade rules and standards, he said.

“China is willing to make due contributions to the setting of new international rules and standards,” Gao said.