Just 11 days later, Minister Shi and his European Union counterpart, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, announced on June 20 in Brussels that they, too, had reached consensus on China's WTO entry.

Details of the Sino-EU accord have yet to be released, but we can gain a general idea of China's commitments from what has been revealed of the Sino-U.S. agreement.

China reiterated it would forego all export subsidies for agriculture, and that it would improve implementation of its bilateral agreement with the United States on grains, meat and citrus fruits. For example, China has established an e-mail hotline to help exporters when their goods encounter problems entering Chinese ports.

INSURANCE: China clarified its commitments towards allowing foreign insurers to write large scale commercial risk in the country. A specific timetable was set to phase-out the compulsory 20 per cent concession to the state-invested China Reinsurance Company to zero within five years after WTO accession.

China has promised to grant import and export rights to both foreign-invested companies in China and foreign companies that export goods to China. The country will phase-in trading rights for foreign-invested enterprises over a three-year period, starting with minority foreign-invested joint ventures qualifying for trading rights one year after accession, majority foreign-invested qualifying after two years and wholly foreign-owned enterprises qualifying three years after China's accession. The timing is co-ordinated with the phase-in on distribution, so that three years after accession, a wholly-foreign owned enterprise can import and distribute almost all products.

For foreign enterprises without a presence in China, the agreed text limits the types of requirements that China can impose as a condition on obtaining trading rights and provides that trading rights will be granted in a non-discriminatory and non-discretionary way.

Now that China has reached consensus with the United States and the EU, a few important steps remain to be taken before the country can become a WTO member.

First of all, the 16th meeting of the WTO Working Party on the Accession of China was held in Geneva from June 28 to July 4. This was the first meeting to be held at the WTO headquarters since negotiations on agriculture subsidies came to a standstill in January.

On July 3, chief Chinese negotiator Long Yongtu told reporters that, "All major issues have been resolved." The working group will meet again on July 14, and then again in mid-September when the overall agreement is expected to be completed.

As such, it is expected the Sino-U.S. and Sino-EU agreements will be realised at the forthcoming meeting.

After the working group meetings, China and all other parties involved in the negotiations will have to submit to the WTO Secretariat their lists of commitments so that member nations can verify the technical details and finalise the terms for China's accession. As of early July, about 20 member nations had yet to forward their lists. The submission and verification process is expected to take two to three months to complete.

Moreover, the terms on China's admission must be compiled into three documents: a report, a draft membership treaty (protocol of accession) and a list of commitments (schedule). The package will be presented to the WTO General Council or the highest authority of the WTO - the Ministerial Conference - for approval. China will then need a two-third majority vote to become a WTO member.

While the technical points seem straightforward, it is still uncertain whether a new round of multilateral trade talks will be on the agenda of the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference, to be held in Doha, Qatar, from November 9 to 13. Despite strong appeal from WTO Director-General Mike Moore, the topic has been opposed by trade projectionist forces.

Nevertheless, it is possible that the Ministerial Conference will give rise to a new round of multilateral trade talks and the WTO Secretariat is speeding up its preparation for the conference.