This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-03-797R 
entitled 'GAO's Electronic Database of China's World Trade Organization 
Commitments' which was released on June 13, 2003.

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June 13, 2003:

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley:

Chairman:

The Honorable Max Baucus:

Ranking Minority Member:

Committee on Finance:

United States Senate:

The Honorable William M. Thomas:

Chairman:

The Honorable Charles B. Rangel:

Ranking Minority Member:

Committee on Ways and Means:

House of Representatives:

Subject: GAO's Electronic Database of China's World Trade Organization 
Commitments:

China's December 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) 
signified that the world's seventh largest economy and the United 
State's fourth largest trading partner would be subject to the 
multilateral organization's trade liberalizing requirements. China's 
accession agreement is a set of legal documents totaling more than 800 
pages. In order to fulfill its WTO commitments, China will have to 
undertake numerous actions over the next 10 years, ranging from 
reducing or eliminating tariffs to improving the transparency of trade-
related rules and regulations.

An understanding of the terms of China's WTO accession is essential to 
judging whether China is adhering to these commitments. On October 3, 
2002, we issued a report to you entitled World Trade Organization: 
Analysis of China's Commitments to Other Members, GAO-03-4. That report 
analyzed the agreement between China and WTO members, including the 
United States, that allowed China to accede to the WTO. The agreement 
sets forth China's commitments--or legally binding pledges--to other 
WTO members and describes how China will adhere to the organization's 
underlying agreements, principles, rules, and specific procedures. 
Because of the length and complexity of the accession agreement, we 
created an electronic database of the major components of the agreement 
in order to conduct our analysis. We are releasing this database 
publicly today to assist members of Congress and their staffs, U.S. 
executive branch agencies, and other interested parties in analyzing, 
monitoring, and enforcing China's WTO commitments.

Users can search the database to identify China's WTO commitments and 
to access some of the key results of our analysis as described in our 
October 2002 report. In our analysis, we identified nearly 700 
individual commitments concerning how China is expected to reform its 
trade regime, as well as commitments that liberalize market access for 
more than 7,000 goods and nine broad services sectors. The database 
allows users to search the more than 800 pages of the agreement based 
on broad subject areas (such as intellectual property rights or import 
regulation) or on specific key words, sectors, and products (such as 
transparency, agriculture, or automobiles). It combines information on 
commitments China made relating to tariffs and nontariff measures (such 
as quotas) into one source so that users can quickly identify all the 
different types of barriers that foreign products face. The database 
also allows users to search China's commitments relating to services 
based on a specific sector, mode of delivery, or the types of 
limitations that China specified (such as limitations that require 
foreign service providers to partner with a Chinese company). In 
summary, the flexibility and comprehensiveness of the database can 
enable users to quickly and more efficiently analyze China's 
commitments.

Background:

In recognizing the scope and importance of China's commitments, 
Congress has provided significant resources to executive branch 
agencies to enhance the government's ability to monitor and enforce 
China's compliance with its accession agreement. Monitoring and 
enforcing China's compliance has proved to be a complex and challenging 
task, as demonstrated by our recent report, World Trade Organization: 
First-Year U.S. Efforts to Monitor China's Compliance, GAO-03-461. 
Those who monitor China's compliance with its accession agreement can 
benefit from having access to useful tools to identify and study 
particular obligations. Our database is one such tool that may be of 
use in your own efforts, as well as those of the executive branch, 
other WTO members, and the U.S. business community.

Enclosure I provides a brief description of our database and how to 
download it. Enclosure II provides a brief summary of our analysis and 
some minor modifications we made to the classification of certain 
commitments.

We provided a draft of this database to U.S. Trade Representative, 
Commerce, State, Agriculture, and other agency officials for their 
technical comments, which we have incorporated into the database as 
appropriate.

----------------------------------:

We are sending copies of this correspondence and database to interested 
congressional committees and executive branch agencies. Copies of this 
correspondence and access to the database will be made available at no 
charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you have questions regarding this correspondence, please contact me 
on (202) 512-4128 or Adam Cowles, Assistant Director, on (202) 512-
9637. Other major contributors to this correspondence and to the 
development of the database include Matthew Helm and Timothy Wedding.

Susan S. Westin:

Managing Director:

International Affairs and Trade:

Signed by Susan S. Westin:

Enclosure I:

Description of the Database:

Our electronic database of China's World Trade Organization (WTO) 
commitments is a single Microsoft (MS) Access file and requires users 
to have MS Access 2000 to open the file. It includes instructions and 
tips for using the database along with definitions of the source data. 
The database has three main searchable tables: (1) the text of the 
agreement, (2) China's tariff and nontariff measures on foreign goods, 
and (3) China's schedule of services commitments. In addition, the 
database includes our identification and classification of individual 
commitments from the texts, as well as our classification of particular 
types of limitations described in China's services schedule.[Footnote 
1] However, the database does not include the list of subsidies China 
notified the WTO of (Annex 5) or certain WTO members' reservations to 
the agreement (Annex 7).[Footnote 2]

In the process of preparing the database for public distribution, we 
added other categories to our analysis of China's commitments that were 
not included in the October 2002 report. These additional categories 
did not change the total number of commitments we identified but did 
modify slightly the groupings that we reported. Enclosure II to this 
correspondence briefly describes our analysis and the updated 
categories.

How To Download the Database:

The database can be accessed on GAO's Web site at the following URL: 
http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/gaochnawtodb.zip. This file is a self-
extracting zip file that includes the MS Access database (GAO's China-
WTO Database.mdb), text files of the underlying data tables, China's 
original WTO accession agreement, and a summary file (readme.txt) that 
explains the various files included. Users should download the zip file 
to their computers' hard drive and then double-click on the file to 
extract the individual files to a location on their hard drive. In 
order to use the full database, users need to have MS Access 2000 
installed on their computers. However, the text files of the underlying 
data tables can be imported into any database or spreadsheet program 
for users without MS Access 2000.

Please note that some users may have trouble downloading a zip file 
depending on whether their agency's or company's fire wall permits it. 
If you are unable to download this file, we may be able to send you a 
copy by another means. Please refer to the contact information at the 
end of the letter portion of this product.

Enclosure II:

Description of Our Analysis and Updated Categories:

As part of the analysis in our report World Trade Organization: 
Analysis of China's Commitments to Other Members, GAO-03-4 (Washington, 
D.C.: Oct. 3, 2002), we identified seven types of commitments included 
in the Protocol and Working Party report of China's accession 
agreement. In table 3 (p. 12) of the report we listed the number of 
commitments of each type by the area of the agreement. In the process 
of preparing the database for public distribution, we made some minor 
adjustments to that analysis. These changes did not affect the overall 
number of commitments we identified nor the number in each trade area. 
The changes affected the classification of only a few types of 
commitments within particular areas. In addition, we are reporting an 
eighth type of commitment, which we identify in the database as 
"practices." Commitments of this type require China to create, modify, 
or repeal an existing practice (that is not specified as a law or 
regulation) in order to comply with a WTO requirement. Table 1 presents 
our updated analysis of the number of China's commitments by area and 
type.

Table 1: Type and Number of China WTO Trade Regime Commitments, by 
Area:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of China's WTO accession agreement.

[End of table]

(320176):

FOOTNOTES

[1] For a description of the scope and methodology for this analysis, 
see U.S. General Accounting Office, World Trade Organization: Analysis 
of China's Commitments to Other Members, GAO-03-4 (Washington, D.C.: 
Oct. 3, 2002).

[2] The subsidies notification is a description of Chinese subsidy 
programs and is not easily converted into a useful format for a 
database. The reservations annex lists restrictions that seven WTO 
members (other than the United States) intend to maintain on certain 
imports from China following accession. Both annexes can be downloaded 
from the WTO Web site.