A World Bank executive has pointed to the significance of China's membership in the World Trade Organization, saying that it is important for both China and the international trade body.

Pieter Bottelier, head of the World Bank's resident mission in China, said at an international conference on the WTO and China's economic and trade development in Beijing today that, "WTO membership is substantively and symbolically very important for China and for the WTO."

Because the WTO has to deal not only with trade barriers at countries' borders, but also a broad array of domestic policies and regulations that influence trade and investment, two important challenges facing china in the WTO negotiations are how to achieve more effective coordination inside China and greater transparency in its protective measures, he said.

The World Bank is following China's WTO membership negotiation process with great interest and is willing to support it with independent analysis and advice, Bottelier noted.

He said that since the beginning of its economic reforms in 1978, China's share in global trade has increased extremely rapidly, and China has moved from 33rd to 9th place in world trade and now accounts for about three percent of total world trade volume.

China has accounted for about six percent of incremental world trade over the past five years and its foreign trade amounts to about 40 percent of its gross domestic product, a figure that is twice as high as India's, he added.

With the increasing convertibility of Chinese currency and further liberalization of external trade and investment, China's share in world trade is likely to grow, he pointed out, noting that it is therefore "not surprisng that the position of China in shaping future international economic relations in Asia and in the world has moved to the center of everybody's attention."

China made its yuan (Renminbi) convertible for transactions under the current account on December 1. Wu Yi, China's minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation, told the Canadian Minister of International Trade Arthur Eggleton on Monday that the opening of China's markets "must take stability and prosperity in the Chinese economy as a prerequisite".

"On the issue of China's joining the World Trade Organization," she said, "demanding the opening of China's markets too wide is unrealistic, and a transition process is rather more practical." As the Chinese economy grows and integrates with the rest of the world, China's entrance into the WTO is inevitable, Wu said.

China applied for restoration of its membership in GATT, the WTO's predecessor, in 1986.