China appoints intl trade representatives

Gao Hucheng, vice minister of commerce

BEIJING - China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced Monday that the State Council, China's cabinet, has appointed Gao Hucheng, also vice minister of commerce, as the MOC International Trade Representative.Zhong Shan, vice minister of commerce, and Chong Quan, former assistant to the minister of commerce, were appointed as Deputy International Trade Representatives, a statement posted on the MOC website said.

The Trade Representative will mainly take charge of China's major multilateral or bilateral economic and trade negotiations, and coordinating stances from companies at home. The Deputy Trade Representatives will assist him in these negotiations, the statement said.The mechanism of trade representatives comes in the wake of increasing trade frictions that China has been experiencing since the global financial crisis began, said the statement.China faced 116 trade friction-related cases last year, and their total value reached $12.7 billion, according to the MOC data.The data also shows that China's exports last year accounted for only 9.6 percent of world exports, but the country faced 40 percent of all anti-dumping probes and 75 percent of all anti-subsidy investigations throughout the world.