Although joining WTO will have undoubted long term benefits, in the short tem accession will make things tougher for China, says Chan. For example, China's share of world output will decrease to 5.21% in 2005 compared to 5.3% it could have had if the country stayed out of WTO.
On the other hand, WTO will enable China to become anchored within the global trading structure, with its share of exports and imports rising to 6.8% and 6.6% respectively, compared to 4.8% and 5.3% had the country not joined WTO, says Chan.
However, joining WTO will not break China's unfortunate tradition of low corporate profitability, he warns. So far, China's impressive GDP growth has...
