Japan and China acknowledged Tuesday that they have made "major progress" in ongoing negotiations over the Asian giant's accession to the World Trade Organization.
The latest development came as Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Chinese Premier Li Peng met in Tokyo to exchange views on a range of bilateral issues.
A Japanese trade official said that China, in the course of intensive bilateral negotiations in the past several months, came up with quite an impressive liberalization proposal concerning distribution services.
Specifically, he said, China promised to gradually eliminate restrictions over wholesale and retail businesses. Although he would not collaborate on specific timetables, he said the elimination will be made well before 2011, when China would start an elimination process under its nonbinding commitment to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
As a result of intensive negotiations during the past several months, the two nations "acknowledge that major progress has been made in the bilateral negotiations on trade in services," a joint statement said. The two nations also pledged to work together intensively toward the comprehensive conclusion of the bilateral negotiations.