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China Marks First Day in WTO With New Stamps, and More (3) 
WED, DEC 12, 2001
In making the announcement, a spokesman for the tariff committee of the State Council reaffirmed that the Chinese government will abide by its commitment and will continue to lower its tariff in the years ahead.

While the government has been prudent in describing the gains from China's WTO membership, a senior economist from Nomura International (Hong Kong) Limited predicted Tuesday that China's entry into WTO will give additional boost for its GDP growth.

"We see joining the WTO enabling the economy to add an extra 0.5 percentage points to GDP growth until 2006, while exports should grow by 16 percent per annum in 2002-06," said Pu Yonghao in a report published Tuesday.

Also optimistic about the prospect of China's WTO entry is Yiping Huang, a senior economist for Salomon Smith Barney, who believed that this move will on average add about one percentage point to China's GDP growth in each of the next five years.

"Given its current income level and reform momentum, we believe China can achieve an average growth rate at around 7.5 percent for the next 10 years," compared to average growth of over 10 percent in the past decade, Huang said.

China's common citizens are also preparing themselves for the gains and challenges with the country's WTO entry.

This could be reflected by the fact that books on China's WTO membership have become best sellers in bookstores in Beijing

At the Xidan Book Emporium, the largest book shop in Beijing, a WTO lecture was given Tuesday morning by Prof. Zhang Hanlin, a renowned economist, to mark the release of his book "Zhang Hanlin Deciphering China's WTO Entry."

Over 300 different books on the WTO occupied the prime position in the downtown bookstore, which is selling 7,000 to 8,000 such books monthly, according to the store's sales staff.Enditem


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