200 1, 65438+February, 1 1, China officially joined the World Trade Organization, becoming the 43rd member of the organization. Historically, since 1986 China resumed GATT, 15 China made efforts to join the World Trade Organization.

What is the World Trade Organization?

The World Trade Organization, abbreviated as WTO in English, is an international organization independent of the United Nations, and its existence is permanent. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Trade Organization was established at 1995 65438+ 10/month. As of May 2020, the World Trade Organization has 164 member countries, in addition to 24 observer countries. In actual international economic transactions, the World Trade Organization adheres to the principles of reciprocity, transparency and non-discrimination, aiming at supervising the trade policies and regulations among its member countries, promoting the fairness and rationality of competition in the whole international market, and indirectly promoting the development of the whole international economy.

The role of the World Trade Organization:

1, becoming one of the three-legged international economic institutions.

As an international organization officially responsible for international economic and trade policies, laws and dispute settlement, the World Trade Organization constitutes the basis for the effective operation of the new multilateral trading system in the world. Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is responsible for stabilizing the international monetary and financial system, and the World Bank (IBRD), which provides funds for the development of economy and production, it constitutes a complete system of the world economy and forms an international economic institution with three pillars of world economy and trade.

2. Established a relatively complete legal framework for international trade.

A series of agreements of WTO have been accepted by most countries and regions in the world. This set of trade rules has become an international norm that all countries in the world have to abide by when engaging in international trade, and it is the most basic reference for all countries to formulate relevant laws, regulations and policies. With the continuous development of economic globalization, even countries that are not members of the World Trade Organization have to passively abide by this set of rules as long as they engage in international trade activities. This marks the establishment of a relatively complete international trade legal system, which can basically be said to have formed a unified international trade law.

3. Expand the scope of responsibility of the World Trade Organization.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has expanded the coordination field and scope of the multilateral trading system. It not only extends the management authority of the GATT multilateral trading system aimed at coordinating trade in goods (except agricultural products and textiles) to the fields of service trade, intellectual property rights, trade-related investment measures, agricultural products and textiles, but also develops the traditional commodity field to the fields of high-tech products, e-commerce and environmental protection, and constantly expands to new fields that have certain direct or indirect relations with international trade. It strengthens and extends the management "tentacles" of the World Trade Organization in the world multilateral trade relations, that is, the new multilateral trading system not only adjusts the border measures of tariffs and non-tariffs related to import and export trade, but also involves the macro-control measures of members, as well as the formulation and implementation of domestic policies and domestic laws and regulations on goods, services, investment, intellectual property rights, industry and taxation, finance and monetary policies. The WTO has sound institutional and organizational rules, and its work, such as the revision of existing agreements and the negotiation of new agreements, can continue. This mechanism provides sufficient conditions and opportunities for opening the market at any time, expanding trade, dealing with major issues in international economy and trade in time, and further improving the international trading system.

4. The system of settling trade disputes among members has been strengthened.

The dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization is sound, with a wide range of applications, strict requirements for experts in charge of disputes, clear and unified procedures, rules and time limits, and relatively fair and rapid trials, showing a trend of multilateralization and judicature. The rules adopted by reverse consensus are conducive to the establishment of the review panel and the adoption of the Appellate Body's ruling, and retaliation and compensation are equivalent to automatic adoption and entry into force, thus enhancing the authority of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

The trade policy review system has been improved.

The WTO has further improved the trade policy review mechanism, institutionalized and legalized it, enhanced the transparency of its members' trade policies, reduced trade frictions, and contributed to maintaining the stability of the multilateral trading system. Mutual deliberation among WTO members urges member governments to strictly abide by WTO rules and disciplines and fulfill their commitments. In fact, the review has achieved two obvious results. On the one hand, it makes the outside world know about a member's policies and situation, on the other hand, it feeds back its performance in the trading system to the member under review.

6. Taking into account the interests of developing country members.

To some extent, the agreements of the World Trade Organization reflect and reflect the needs of developing countries, especially the least developed countries, in terms of economic development level and capital trade, and make clear legal statements on the special and differential preferential treatment of developing countries.

Functions of the World Trade Organization:

1. Organize negotiations and manage the agreements reached in the negotiations. The functions of WTO negotiations are mainly embodied in two aspects: first, to provide a negotiating place for members to solve problems related to multilateral trade relations when implementing the agreements listed in the Annex to the Agreement on the Establishment of the World Trade Organization; The second is to provide a venue for all members to continue negotiations on new issues. The function of its management agreement refers to the management of the implementation of multilateral trade agreements and plurilateral trade agreements reached through multilateral trade negotiations. Its agreement management function involves not only the agreements reached at present, but also the implementation of new agreements to be reached in the future under the framework of the World Trade Organization.

2. Settlement of trade disputes. The World Trade Organization is responsible for implementing the Understanding on Rules and Procedures for Dispute Settlement and settling trade disputes among its members. This function enables the World Trade Organization to take effective measures to resolve disputes arising from the implementation of relevant agreements among its members and ensure the smooth implementation of agreements within its jurisdiction.

3. Review of trade policies. The trade policy review mechanism of the World Trade Organization was founded in Uruguay Round and formed on the basis of the Understanding on Notification, Consultation, Dispute Settlement and Supervision reached in Tokyo Round 1979. Article 7 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, as the Agreement on the Establishment of the World Trade Organization and its annex III, includes the review objectives, transparency, review procedures, reports submitted for review, etc.

China's accession to the World Trade Organization has the following positive significance:

1. is conducive to promoting the development of international trade in China and improving the international trade environment in China. After China's entry into WTO, the use of multilateral MFN treatment and multilateral trading system is conducive to the diversification of export markets.

2. Provide good opportunities for China's foreign economic and trade development and enjoy preferential treatment from developing countries.

This will help China attract more foreign investment. After China joined the World Trade Organization, many promising industries in China are open to foreign investment. The national treatment provided to foreign-funded enterprises will make foreign capital flood into China, and these foreign capitals will also flood into China. It has not only built a lot of funds for China, made up for the shortage of construction funds, but also brought a lot of advanced management experience and increased employment opportunities, thus promoting the healthy and rapid development of China's economy.

4. Promote social attention to the all-round development of market economy and China's reform, realize all-round and multi-level opening up, expand the achievements of reform and opening up, speed up integration with the international market, and maintain the rapid economic development of China.

5. Reduce commodity prices through competition, improve China's labor productivity, make people's effective demand and real income increase substantially and steadily, improve people's living standards, fully enjoy the benefits of world economic development, provide more opportunities for other parties to enter the China market, and enable foreign enterprises to compete with China enterprises on an equal footing and break the monopoly.

The WTO is actually a permanent international organization outside the United Nations system. The WTO officially started to operate on June 1995 65438+ 10/0/. Its main responsibility is to manage the world economic and trade order, and its headquarters is located on the lakeside of Lemmon, Geneva, Switzerland. 1996 65438+ 10 1, which officially replaced the provisional institutions of GATT. The symbol of the World Trade Organization always consists of six upward curved arcs, of which the three arcs at the top and three sides are red, blue and green. These six arcs represent the World Trade Organization, which is an international institution composed of different member countries. In a sense, this symbol means that the dynamic World Trade Organization will play a key role in the sustained and orderly expansion of world trade. And the designer of the logo skillfully integrated China's calligraphy into it, giving people a sense of rhythm of calligraphy.

Basic obligations of WTO members:

1. In terms of goods, services, intellectual property rights, etc. According to the provisions of the World Trade Organization, other members are given most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment;

2, according to the provisions of the relevant agreements of the World Trade Organization, the obligations, tariffs and non-tariff measures to give other members market access for goods and services;

3, according to the provisions of the intellectual property agreement, standardize intellectual property protection measures;

4. Understand that other members take "exemption" and take urgent actions to implement safeguard measures according to their circumstances;

5. Fair settlement of trade disputes with other members in accordance with WTO dispute settlement rules and procedures;

6, to ensure that its laws, regulations and administrative procedures comply with the obligations stipulated in the agreement to establish the World Trade Organization;

7. Increase the transparency of trade policies and relevant laws and regulations, and provide information on domestic trade policies and measures to the World Trade Organization and its members;

8. Accept the trade policy review of the World Trade Organization;

9. Pay a certain percentage of membership fees. Membership dues are basically apportioned according to the proportion of each member's exports of goods and services to the member's total exports, and the minimum apportionment ratio is 0.03%, which is applicable to members whose trade volume accounts for less than 0.03% of the total trade volume of WTO members.