United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in Davos on February 1, 1997 that he would like to see China become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"I think that it is important that China, with the size of its economy and population, should play a part in the WTO," Annan said, after giving a speech at the plenary session of the 27th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

"I know negotiations are going on. I'm not too well informed at this stage of the details of the negotiations, but I personally would want to see China as a member of the WTO," he said. In his speech entitled "Building Partnerships to Address the Challenges of Globalization", Annan said that for both the United Nations system and the private sector, the goal for the 21st century was nothing less than the creation of a true global economy.

To fulfil the goal, Annan said, a new partnership among governments, the private sector and the international community should be created.

He said traditional dogma of North and South should be abandoned. "In every country of the North there is a bit of the South; in every South there is a North.

"Today there is a clear and demonstrable link between profitability and raising living standards for the world's poorest people ... profitability and equity are not mutually exclusive goals." Annan said.

Annan, who took office as UN Secretary-General on January 1, 1997, also urged all member states to meet their financial obligations to the UN in full, but he did not mention the United States in his speech.