A Ministry of Justice official yesterday urged legal services to prepare for China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is expected soon.
"Lawyers and researchers should learn about the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism," said Vice-Minister of Justice Liu Yang.
Her comments came at the opening ceremony of a workshop on the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, its rules, procedures and practices.
She said judicial administrative departments and government legal advisers should be prepared to provide accurate legal help to aid national and regional policy making.
The 11-day serious of workshop, co-sponsored by the Ministry of Justice and the State Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs, is being held in Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing and will be attended by more than 160 delegates, including government legal advisers and researchers from 28 law colleges and schools.
Touring lecturers from the WTO, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Australia and China will address participants in the three workshops.
The lack of specialists on the WTO has become an issue being discussed more and more in China now. Long Yongtu, China's top WTO negotiator, acknowledged over the weekend that more work needs to be done to improve research in the area.
As a move towards that, the earlier launched WTO research center, under the University of International Business and Economics, was officially listed as one of China's key research centers on Saturday.
(China Daily November 5, 2000)
