China blasts US ban on its poultry

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-13 09:02

GENEVA -- China on Thursday blasted a US measure blocking Chinese poultry imports, saying the "clearly discriminative measure" can serve as a good example for the WTO's training courses.

A chicken is seen at a poultry market in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in this January 27, 2009 file photo. China on Thursday blasted a US measure blocking Chinese poultry imports, saying the "clearly discriminative measure" can serve as a good example for the WTO's training courses. [Agencies]

The US measure, or Section 727, is contained in the Omnibus Appropriation Act of 2009, which was approved by the US Senate on Tuesday. It bans any funds from being used to "establish or implement a rule" allowing imports of poultry products from China.

"It is needless to explain why such discriminative measure are forbidden by the WTO," said Zhang Xiangchen, deputy permanent representative of the Chinese WTO mission.

"Perhaps we could send to the Institute of Training and Technical Cooperation of the WTO Secretariat a copy of this section, which would serve as a perfect example for their training courses," Zhang told a WTO meeting in Geneva.

"I believe that any trainee with a preliminary knowledge will tell that this section violates the basic rules of the WTO including the MFN (most-favored-nation) treatment principle," he said.

In a strong-worded statement, Zhang said he had got "a specific instruction from Beijing to express the serious concern of the Chinese government about the US Omnibus Appropriation Act of 2009."

"What should we, all WTO members, do to prevent such discriminative practice from undermining the multilateral trading system and sending wrong signal to the outside world at this critical juncture of global crisis?" said Zhang at the meeting.

"How should we live up to our commitments repeatedly made both here at the WTO and at the G20 summit to resist trade protectionism?" he added.

On Wednesday, the Chinese WTO mission in Geneva also sent a verbal note to its US counterpart.

According to the note, the US measure has triggered strong reactions in China, and the government is under increasing pressure from the poultry industries to "adopt related measures to poultry products imported from the United States."

"China would raise complaints to the WTO in this regard and maintain the right of further measures," said the note.

"At the same time, we would like to urge the US to eliminate such kind of discriminative and trade protectionist provision as soon as possible in order to correct its wrong decision," it said.

China and the United States banned imports of each other's poultry in 2004 following outbreaks of bird flu. They agreed to lift the bans at the Sino-US joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in 2004.

China did lift the ban but has complained that the United States was not following suit.

China imported 580,000 tons of chicken products from the United States last year, accounting for 73.4 percent of total chicken imports, according to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.