Experts say China should pursue the rights to be treated as a market economy by the World Trade Organization as some countries have used its initial 15-year non-market WTO membership to hike up anti-dumping measures against Chinese products.

Although both the Chinese government and enterprises are working for WTO rules changes to be treated as a market economy, more effort is needed to deal effectively with the problem. This was the message that came out of the WTO Affairs Forum held in Shanghai Monday.

According to China's agreement with the WTO, the nation is to be treated as a non-market economy until 2016.

"In the short term, the discriminatory treatment will slow down trade growth to a certain degree," said Feng Jun, senior consultant at the Shanghai WTO Affairs Consultation Center.

The increase in anti-dumping measures targeting Chinese products launched by the United States and the European Union are indicative of a trend.

China is actually pursuing changes through the current WTO rules negotiations to be treated as a market economy.

Andrew Stoler, former deputy director-general of the WTO said: "while China was probably right in insisting on this option in its efforts to deal with the problem (of dumping charges), there is little chance that a consensus can be reached (among WTO members) to revoke this clause."

A more productive course, he said, is probably to aggressively pursue China's rights under the accession protocol.

"China has the right, sometimes, to be treated as a market economy, not always as a non-market economy," he added.

Cases have shown that the European Union, India and South Korea are already providing regular opportunities for Chinese enterprises to argue that they operate in a market economy context.

This is a result of active participation and response from both the government and enterprises.

Statistics show that Chinese exporters have won 37 percent of the lawsuits charging the country with dumping, according to Feng.

Nonetheless, large quantities of commodities are denied access to various importing WTO members.

(China Daily December 2, 2003)