WTO membership has enabled China to become the impetus for a more just multilateral trading system that benefits all

Dec 11 marks the 10th anniversary of China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Membership of the international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations has proved beneficial not only to China but also the other WTO members over the past decade.

Being a WTO member has provided a more transparent, more secure, more predictable world market for China in the global industrial chain, and at the same time, China has become an important part of the world economy, providing huge market opportunities for other WTO members.

This has been particularly evident after the onset of the global economic crisis, as China's economy is driving the global recovery. This is closely related to China's market reforms and adjustment of its industrial structure, which strengthened the competitive power of State-owned enterprises, banks and agriculture and proves that China's accession to the WTO was a wise decision that has benefited the nation and the world.

Over the last 10 years, China has fully and comprehensively implemented the liberalization commitments required by the WTO. Tariff and non-tariff restrictions have significantly decreased. China's average import tariff has been reduced from 15 percent before the accession to 9.5 percent in 2010. Second, China's foreign trade continues to grow rapidly. China's total volume of imports and exports upon its accession to the WTO in 2001 was only $509.6 billion; by 2010 this had grown to $2.97 trillion. China is now the world's largest exporter of goods and the second largest importer. China's imports and exports of services grew from $71.9 billion in 2001 to $362.4 billion in 2010.

Meanwhile, foreign investment in China has continued to grow. Foreign direct investment reached $68.8 billion in 2010, accounting for 5.2 percent of the global total that year, and has maintained an annual average growth rate of 49.9 percent for nine consecutive years.

In addition, China provides preferential policies, such as tax free and quota free, to facilitate market access for the world's poorest countries, with the result that China became the largest export market for the least developed countries in 2008. The commitment to cut tariffs to the least developed countries has been strictly fulfilled, while the duty-free quota will be further implemented. President Hu Jintao at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, earlier this month promised to gradually give zero-tariff treatment to 97 percent of products imported from the least developed countries that have diplomatic relations with China. China's openness is now 62.5 percent, the same level as developed countries.

Before China's accession to the WTO, the government was worried about the effect it would have on industries, such as the automobile industry and agriculture, which were considered vulnerable. But these industries have achieved great development in the process of marketization, as China launched a large-scale modern enterprise system reform to enhance productivity and invested several hundred billion dollars to adjust the industrial structure and improve technologies during these 10 years. As a result technology and product quality have increased rapidly. In 2009, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest auto market and in 2010 the total imports and exports of automotive products was $108.53 billion.