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World Trade Organization: First-Year U.S. Efforts to Monitor China's Compliance

GAO-03-461 Published: Mar 31, 2003. Publicly Released: Mar 31, 2003.
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Highlights

China's December 2001 membership in the World Trade Organization created substantial opportunities for U.S. companies seeking to expand into China's vast market, and for significant reforms within China at all levels of government. However, the benefits of China's membership in the World Trade Organization are contingent on China's successful implementation of its commitments. In recognizing this fact, Congress has provided increased resources to executive branch agencies to enhance the government's ability to effectively monitor and enforce China's compliance. In this study, one of several that GAO will conduct for Congress on China-World Trade Organization issues, GAO was asked to (1) examine key agencies' organizational changes and the interagency process used to carry out compliance responsibilities and (2) review how the agencies have addressed compliance issues that arose during the first year of China's membership, by using two specific examples; the examples illustrate the type of compliance issues U.S. officials face but are not representative of China's compliance record overall. The U.S. Trade Representative and other agency officials provided technical and editorial comments mainly on our characterization of issues relating to tariff-rate quotas and the multilateral review of China's trade policies. We clarified these issues and made other changes as appropriate.

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Foreign governmentsForeign trade policiesInternational trade restrictionInternational organizationsInteragency relationsFederal agency reorganizationTechnical reference modelAgricultural commoditiesCompliance oversightPrivate sector