China may hold bilateral talks on sidelines of APEC meeting: WTO negotiator

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) - China may hold bilateral trade talks on the sidelines of next month's APEC trade ministers meeting in Shanghai to try to speed up the multilateral talks underway in Geneva to resolve the outstanding issues relating to China's accession to the WTO, China's chief negotiator on WTO accession, Long Yongtu, said.	    Although he did not name any individual member states, they are widely believed to be Mexico and the U.S.	    Long said bilateral negotiations concerning China's accession have already basically concluded and the focus has now shifted to multilateral talks in Geneva.	    "However, in order to accelerate this multilateral process, it is still necessary for us to hold bilateral consultations with some members.	    "So I will not exclude the possibility that China will have such bilateral consultations with some APEC member economies concerning its membership in the WTO with view to accelerating this multilateral process," he said.	    Long also said he did not exclude the possibility of China holding bilateral trade talks with Japan which has recently imposed trade tariffs on Chinese vegetable and textile imports.

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