China's WTO accession in the year 2001 is an event of great significance in the world trade history. Most members of the World Trade Organization are market economy countries; therefore, its operations are based on the rules of the market economy. China has, however, been treated unfairly in international trade in that it is regarded as a non-market economy country (NMC) in anti-dumping cases against China.

As a matter of fact, China has already established a market economy system after over 20 years of reforms and opening-up.

To prove China's market economy status, the Economic and Resources Management Research Institute under Beijing Normal University, entrusted by the Ministry of Commerce, released a report entitled Report on the Development of China's Market Economy 2003 on April 13. It studied the latest situation of China's market economy as of the end of 2001.

According to the report, China is about 69 percent a market economy measured by the internationally accepted standard, exceeding 60 percent as the threshold of a market economy country.

"The non-market economy status has caused lots of anti-dumping investigations against Chinese products," said Li Xiaoxi, director of the institute.

As for the objectivity of the report, Li explained that his team chose five major criteria: government behavior, freedom of economic restriction, access to production, fair trade and financial parameters, having consulted related anti-dumping laws in the United States, European Union (EU) and Canada. Based on these criteria, they further designed 11 sub-parameters and 33 economic indicators, making the report more acceptable and comparative to world conditions.

He added that the majority of their statistics were from the National Bureau of Statistics and other authoritative departments. Forty percent of the total economic indicators, about 13, were adopted from the Heritage Foundation of the United States and Fraser Institute of Canada. The research team adopted the ranking standard of the Heritage Foundation, dividing market freedom into five grades where one point stands for the highest level. The report listed the ranking of 33 segmented markets and achieved the ultimate result of 2.51 points, using weighted averages to about 69 percent. 

(China.org.cn November 7, 2003)