He told a press conference sponsored by the on-going annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) that China gives equal treatment to the import of agricultural products from all countries and regions in the world.

China earnestly abides by the rules of the Sino-US Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation and fulfills its commitments, and China has been carrying out import-export commodities inspection and quarantine examination of US agricultural products such as wheat, citrus fruit and tobacco strictly in accordance with the Sino-US agreement, Shi said.

In response to a question about foreign countries adopting anti-dumping measures against China, Shi said that the Chinese government has always been opposed to Chinese enterprises dumping their products overseas. However, he expressed the hope that other countries would strictly abide by relevant regulations of the World Trade Organization as they take anti-dumping actions against China.

Noting that China has a relatively low cost of labor and low prices for raw materials, which makes Chinese products very competitive in the global market, he said the export of such products is quite different from dumping.

(Xinhua 03/13/2001)