To celebrate the 10th anniversary of China’s entry to WTO, China recently released the White Paper on China’s Foreign Trade, highlighting the country's achievements in foreign trade and its contribution to the global economy. This is the first time that China issued the White Paper for foreign trade.
According to the White Paper, China has made remarkable progress in foreign trade over the past decade. By 2010, all of China's commitments made upon entry into the WTO had been fulfilled and its efforts are commended by a majority of WTO members. Non-discrimination, transparency, fair competition, and other basic principles advocated by the WTO have been integrated into China's laws and regulations and relevant systems. Additionally, consciousness of market, opening and fair competition and the public awareness of the law and trade-related intellectual property protection becomes deeply valued in China.
However, the gap still exists between China and other trading powers of the world. China's export industry is still in the low end of the global industrial chain. Resources, energy and environmental costs are relatively high. and the exports of Chinese own brand are comparatively low.
With regard to intellectual property protection, remarkable efforts have been made by Chinese government and significant progress has been made in legislation, law enforcement, publicity, training and enhancement of social awareness of IPR protection.
In 2008 China published the Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, making IPR protection a national strategy. From 2006 to 2011, China formulated the Action Plan on Intellectual Property Protection for six consecutive years, putting in place over 1,000 concrete measures covering the fields of legislation, law enforcement, education and training, cultural communication and exchanges with the outside world.
