On the 11th of November 2015, 14th anniversary of China’s signing up Protocol of Accession, “2015 China Trade Forum and the 14 Annual Conference on WTO and China” was held in Beijing Hotel. This conference was sponsored by University of International Business and Economics and WTO Seminar of China, and was undertaken by China Institute for WTO Studies, together with National Committee of U.S.-China Trade, European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC)，Johnson and Johnson(JNJ) Investment Limited and International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development(ICTSD) participating in the conference.

The Annual Conference on WTO and China serves as a crucial platform for the discussion of issues concerned with WTO for experts at home and abroad, and offers numerous beneficial information and new viewpoints for policy making and academic research. More than 20 experts and scholars including Sun Zhenyu-chairman of WTO Seminar of China and the first China ambassador to the WTO, Long Guoqiang-deputy director of the State Council Development Studies Center, Harsha V. Singh-the former WTO deputy secretary-general, Mats Harborn-deputy chairman of EUCCC, Tim Stratford-the former U.S. trade representative, our vice president Lin Guijun and Lin Weiji- vice representative of International Monetary Fund(IMF) to China, expressed their own opinions on China’s impacts on WTO, TPP and China’s strategies of Free Trade Area, China’s policies of foreign capital and foreign investment and other hotspot topics. More than 200 scholars and experts from international organizations, government agencies, and research institutes at home and aboard attended the conference.

Our president Shi Jianjun attended the annual conference and delivered the welcoming speech. He pointed out that China had gained tremendous development since China’s accession to WTO, and with the multilateral trade system entering the key period, further efforts of various countries were badly needed to push forward the global economic and trade cooperation.

The one-day annual conference mainly consists of four topics: China’s impacts on world trade, WTO in the past two decades and China’s new open economic system, diversified choices of trade liberalization, and foreign investment and the utilization of foreign capital. Grasping closely those newest trends of economic and trade development, those topics reflect accurately major issues faced with the international economic cooperation. And scholars and experts fully talked about those topics with multiple viewpoints and new opinions.

There are many splendid opinions of experts and scholars in the conference. For example, our ambassador Sun Zhenyu holds that despite all the challenges brought by TPP to China and other countries, in the long run, TPP may merge with RCEP to be a FTAAP, which may be the future trend of world regionalism, and China can engage in RCEP negotiations more actively, and currently China has the responsibility to strengthen and prosper WTO.

Lastly, our dean Tu Xinquan made a summary of the annual conference, and he hoped that Annual Conference on WTO and China could maintain communication and cooperation with organizations, institutions and experts of related fields, and made tireless efforts for policy making and academic research.