Unilateral trade measures will not work as world economies overlap and are more interdependent than at any time in history, Executive Director of the Inter Trade Center (ITC) Arancha Gonzalez has said.
In a written interview with Xinhua, she said cooperative and multilateral solutions are necessary in the current system.
"Multilateralism means cooperation, and cooperation means compromises," she said, adding that a country is not weak when it comprises, but it wants to find effective solutions.
History has taught the people that trade protectionism does not protect jobs, and that nobody wins in a trade war, she said.
Against the backdrop that the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded its seventh trade policy review (TPR) of China on Friday, Gonzalez said that China is moving in the right direction.
In the past two years, China has made progress in such important areas as reducing tariffs, lowering non-tariff barriers, opening up its service market, strengthening protection of intellectual property rights, improving regulations and increasing transparency, she said.
Before joining the ITC, a joint development agency of the WTO and the UN in 2013, Gonzalez served as the chief of staff at the WTO for eight years.
Gonzalez also said China has made its contributions by opening up its market, engaging in negotiations, implementing disputes settlement decisions and providing more and more support to developing countries.
"The WTO is at a crossroad. We need to bring its rulebook up-to-date with the reality. The last major reform of the WTO took place in 1995, long before the technology revolution," said Gonzalez.
It will not be easy, she said, but eventually, an up-to-date system formed through negotiations will be better for China and for the rest of the world than unilateral tit-for-tat measures, she said.
