Long Yongtu hopes China can enter WTO by Nov: FT

SHANGHAI (AFX-ASIA) - Long Yongtu, China's chief negotiator on the country's bid to enter the World Trade Organisation, said he hopes China can join the WTO by the time WTO ministers meet in Doha, Qatar, in November, the Financial Times reported.

	    Long, currently in Geneva for bilateral negotiations with WTO members, rejected talk that China is seeking to delay its entry to the WTO.

	    He said he presented a counter-proposal on agricultural subsidies to U.S. trade officials late last week.

	    Long added that he and U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick should meet in Shanghai early next month, during a meeting of trade ministers of Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum countries, to discuss China's "positive and constructive" proposal, which he hopes will form the basis for a solution to the dispute on agricultural subsidies.

	    He refused to disclose the details of the counter-proposal, but said China will not give up its claim to developing country status.

	    The report said that even if the substantive accession negotiations are concluded in June, there will be little time to complete and check the 

technical paperwork to enable China to join by November.

	    "It can still be done, but the timeframe is very ambitious," one WTO official said, according to the report.

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