WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SPS/34 
2 November 2004 
 (04-4662) 
Committee on Sanitary a nd Phytosanitary Measures  
  
 
  
REPORT TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS 
ON CHINA'S TRANSITIONAL REVIEW 
 
 
 
 The present report is submitted under the responsib ility of the Chairperson, as agreed by the 
Committee at its meeting of 27-28 October 2004.  
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  1. The Committee held its third annual Transitional Review under Paragraph 18 of the Protocol 
of the Accession of the People's Republic of Ch ina at the regular meeting on 27-28 October 2004 
(WT/L/432 refers). 
2. Statements made at the Committee meeting in th e context of this transitional review by  
Australia, China, the European Communities, the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, 
Kinmen and Matsu, and the United States will be reflected in the Summary Report of the October 
meeting to be circulated as G/SPS/R/35 (excerpt attached).   
 
 
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 G/SPS/34 
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ATTACHMENT - EXCERPT FROM G/SPS/R/35  
AGENDA ITEM 11:  TRANSITIONAL REVIEW UNDER PARAGRAPH 18 OF THE 
PROTOCOL OF ACCESSION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA 
 
1. The Chairman recalled that in accordance with Paragraph 18 of the Protocol of Accession of 
the People's Republic of China, the SPS Committee is to undertake an annual review for eight years of 
the implementation by China of the SPS Agreement.   He opened the floor for comments or questions 
from Members. 
2. The representative of the European Communiti es thanked the Chinese authorities for their 
positive move to lift the embargo for some bovine and dairy-based products, such as bovine semen, 
bovine embryo and other protein derivates from bovine.  Therefore, in the document for the 
Transitional Review of China submitted by the European Communities (G/SPS/W/154), some of the 
points or comments were no longer up to date.  The representative of th e European Communities 
indicated that he would make a written correcti on in the form of an addendum to the document 
submitted and the positive moves on these issues woul d accordingly be updated in this document.  
3. The representative of the United States stated that in response to this item, that was 
announced and placed on the agenda as of the last meeting, the United States had submitted a paper 
(G/SPS/W/153) dated 4 October, wh ich provided some information on issues that they had raised with 
China in a number of different fora, including at m eetings of this Committee.  The United States 
considered that the Transitional Review Mechanis m was a useful exercise to gain an improved 
understanding and to clarify important aspects of Chin a's implementations of its  obligations under the 
SPS Agreement.  It was also important to ta ke note, as was done in the opening sentences of 
paragraph 1 of the US paper, that in the view  of the United States, China's implementation had 
markedly improved since the last time the Committee conducted this review.   
4. The representative of the United States indicated that  he was not going to go into details of all 
the issues that were presented in the paper, but would highlight a few.  In many cases China had 
promulgated and implemente d laws without notification to the WT O.  One example of this problem 
was AQSIQ Decree 73, and in the transitional revi ew conducted by the Committee on Agriculture, the 
United States had submitted document G/AG/W/64 a nd Add. 1 to that document, which provided 
written questions concerning a number of decrees, including ACSIQ 73.  At the 23 September 2004 
Committee on Agriculture transitional review discuss ion, the Chinese delegation indicated that they 
would address the issues and questions that the United States had presented regarding Decree 73 in 
this Committee.  In paragraphs 11-13 of its pa per, the United States had again presented those 
questions for a response from the Chinese delegation. 
5. The representative of the United States further noted that his country was interested in 
continuing discussions with China on its SPS progr ammes.  As was noted earlier by the Chinese 
delegation, the United States had an on-going technical assistance programme with China and looked 
forward to productive discussions and enhanced u nderstanding of their implementation of their SPS 
obligations.   
6. The representative of Chinese Taipei commended China on its effort to meet its accession 
commitment.  Chinese Taipei also wanted to ta ke this opportunity to express concern regarding 
China's SPS measures and had raised questions in  document G/S/SPS/W/152, which was circulated 
1 October 2004.  Chinese Taipei looked forward to receive a response from China.   
7. 
The representative of Australia noted that Austra lia valued its strong relationship with China 
and continued to make efforts to strengthen co mmunication and cooperation with China on SPS  G/SPS/34 
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matters.  Australia appreciated China's efforts to  develop and improve its quarantine and inspection 
systems and to ensure that quarantine procedur es were based on sound scientific evidence and 
implemented with appropriate risk management.  While Australia understood the challenges China 
faced, it continued to encourage China to bring its systems fully into compliance with the SPS 
Agreement as quickly as possible, in cluding ensuring consistency and transparency in its development 
and administration of SPS measures, at both a nati onal and provincial level, as well as conformity 
with notification obligations under the SPS Agreem ent.  This would benefit China and all WTO 
Members. 
8. The representative of Australia further observed that Australia had been pleased to offer a 
significant amount of technical assistance to China,  to assist development of its SPS capabilities and 
systems and would continue to do so.  Australia wa s continuing to pursue a number of bilateral SPS 
issues with China, some of a long-standing nature .  The Australian delegation held a constructive 
meeting with the Chinese delegation during the cour se of the week, and had clarified a number of 
market access issues with the Chinese delegation at that time.  Australia looked forward to early 
resolution of these issues to allow bilateral trad e to expand to the mutual benefit of China and 
Australia. 
9. The Chairman asked if any other delegation wish ed to take the floor.  He recalled that in 
accordance with paragraph 18 of the Protocol of the Accession of the People's Accession of China, 
this was simply an opportunity for discussion, and certainly there were no questions being posed 
directly to any Member here.   
10. The representative of China stated  that China felt obliged to remind Members that since the 
deletion of the three bullet points under agenda Item  11 has been adopted by all Members at the very 
beginning of the meeting, it was obviously inappropr iate to make referen ce to documents invalid 
under this agenda item.  He then invited his coll eague to give some responses to some questions 
raised by Members. 
11. The representative of China noted that since animal and plant epidemics and their spread 
frequently changed, China's quarantine requirements mainly reflected the situation through quarantine 
permits issued to importers.  Once an importer obtained a quarantine permit, if there was no import within the validity period or the export country ep idemic situation had unde rgone a  major change, 
then the importer was required to re-apply for a ne w permit.  Importers coul d return the original 
permits to AQSIQ and apply to exch ange it for another new permit.   
12. According to the regulations of the Border An imal and Plant Quarantine Law of the People's 
Republic of China, importers shoul d gather import quarantine permit be fore signing import contracts.  
Exporters could identify China import quarantine requi rements in the trading contracts.  Thus China 
allowed the quarantine authority of an exporting  country or Member to implement quarantine 
measures and to produce quarantine certifications against China's quarantine requirements as written 
in the contract in order to prevent products that  did not meet with China's quarantine requirement 
from being exported to China.  This would also be  beneficial to preventing importers from suffering 
unnecessary losses.   
13. Regarding the bullet point in AQSIQ Decree 73, th e representative of China stated that his 
regulation reiterated the requirements stated in Ar ticle 11 of the Border Animal and Plant Quarantine 
Law which had been in effect since 1 April 1992, and had been notified to the WTO.  This was 
definitely not a new regulation and the purpose of the formulation of this defi nition of this regulation 
had been described in his previous response and was not the meaning understood by some of the 
Members.  Since this regulation's first implementation twelve years ago, the fact was that this law had 
not received any complaints or concerns from impor ters or exporters whic h included those from the 
Members which had just raised the oral questions. G/SPS/34 
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14. The representative of China added a few words about the initial response his colleague had 
just given.  First he expressed his thanks to the de legations that had just taken the floor, and that had 
just made interventions, for their interests in Chin a's policies. China was grateful to the technical 
assistance efforts provided by the United States and Australia to China in this regard.  As a new 
Member China believed efforts of this kind were ve ry useful and very welcome.  He believed that 
with the technical assistance continuing to be provi ded by those Members, China's regulatory regime 
for SPS-elated measures would continue to improve. 
15. The representative of China further noted that some Member's intervention referred to some 
documents that he thought the Committee had agreed at  the beginning of this session to delete, and so 
he wondered what was the validity of those documents  being mentioned here and being included in a 
deliberation or consideration by this Committee fo r this session.  He said it was difficult for his 
delegation to consider how to form  appropriate responses at this moment to those invalid documents 
that were not supposed to be included in the deli berations of this session.  He noted that in the 
intervention by the United States the representative of  the United States referred to the discussion in 
the Committee on Agriculture which took place last month, and of course China later on had taken 
every opportunity, bilaterally and mu ltilaterally at various le vels, at national, mini sterial, departmental 
and divisional levels to try to exchange view s with their US colleagues on those issues.  The 
representative of China took this opportunity to report  to the Committee that just prior to this session 
China had held SPS bilateral consultations with the United States, and he believed that the discussions 
in that session had already covered some of the c oncerns and questions on issues raised by the United 
States.  The representative of China said further that hi s country was prepared to continue to have this 
dialogue and exchange of information with thei r US colleagues on a continuous basis to further 
explore the ways of how to enhance mutual unde rstanding and how to deepen clarification on 
understanding of certain issues and regulations.  He  promised that his delegation was prepared to 
work as closely as before with the US delegation in this regard.   
16. The representative of China concluded by expr essing his deep and special thanks to the 
Chairperson and the Secretariat staff for their great e fforts in preparations for this session.  He said he 
was deeply impressed by the Chairperson's prof essional competence and dedication and hard work 
and wished him good luck in most suc cessfully chairing this session.   
17. The Chairperson thanked the representative of Ch ina and asked whether he wanted the Chair 
to expand on the question that had been posed.  He queried whether it had been a question to the Chair 
or just a rhetorical question that could be left in  the air in terms of the procedural aspects.  The 
Chairperson indicated that he was in the hands of  the representative of China regarding how he would 
like that handled. 
18. The representative of China indicated that it c ould be understood either way, but to save 
labour, one could assume that it could be deemed to be a rhetorical question. 
19. The Chairman noted that he was trying to work as carefully as possible to assure that things 
were well understood.  He asked if any ot her delegation wished to take the floor. 
20. The representative of the United States tha nked the Chinese delegation for the information 
that they had just provided, and noted that his c ountry too looked forward to continuing to build and 
enhance their SPS relationships and to develop a d eeper understanding of China's implementation of 
its SPS obligations.  The United States took note that so me of the issues that were in their paper, some 
of the questions, the rather specific questions, in th eir paper had not been addressed and that it would 
be the intention of the United States to continue to work with China to understand the response that 
the Chinese government had to these particular questi ons.  Many of these issues would be more fully 
developed and addressed through the on-going dialogue and the United States would continue in that 
matter.    G/SPS/34 
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21. The representative of China said that he appreciat ed very much the intervention just made by 
the delegate of the United States.  He believed th at besides this TRM exercise, other avenues of 
dialogue were also open and China was, like the Un ited States, ready to continue this dialogue and 
exchange on all those issues of concern to the Un ited States.  The representative of China made it 
clear that some of those issues raised in the US paper China believed were legitimate, were 
understandable.  China was prepared to work through dialogue with the United States to be able to get 
clearer answers and improve upon China's practice wher e necessary.  China wa s determined to make 
efforts in that direction.   
22. The Chairman stated that he would make a shor t factual report on the transitional review to 
the Council for Trade in Goods (circulated as G/SPS/34). 
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