US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky and China's trade minister Shi Guangsheng signed the agreement after six days of grueling negotiations to open China's relatively closed markets to American products and services.

Details of the agreement were not immediately available. Barshefsky was scheduled to leave the trade ministry, where the signing ceremony took place, to meet President Jiang Zemin at the government headquarters. After shaking hands, Barshefsky and Shi along with special economics adviser Gene Sperling and China's lead WTO negotiator Long Yongtu raised champagne glasses in a toast.

After the agreement was signed, US President Bill Clinton, speaking before business leaders in Turkey, said that a new market-opening agreement with China was "a profoundly important step" in relations between Washington and Beijing and a boon for the global economy.

China's admission to the WTO, the Geneva-based organization that sets the rules for global trade, has been a major foreign policy and economic goal of the Clinton administration. The breakthrough came after talks that at times looked as if they were going to break down. The agreement removes a major hurdle to China's 13-year bid to join the WTO, world trade's rule-making body. China now needs agreements with other key trading partners, particularly the European Union, in order to join the 134-nation trade group before a ministerial meeting kicks off a new round of global trade talks in Seattle November 30.

The new agreement includes specific commitments on opening China's markets for services, industrial goods and agricultural products, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The United States also had asked China to open its telecommunications and financial services sectors. In addition, Washington has demanded that China submit to quotas on textile shipments and anti-dumping measures to prevent surges in low-cost exports. There was immense pressure to sign the agreements on China's entry to WTO because WTO members will meet in late November to discuss the launching of new global trade liberalization talks.

China wants to be part of these talks, but there has been concern that once trade ministers start negotiating new trade liberalization measures they would be too busy to take up Beijing's entry for several years.

WTO membership will bring benefits and drawbacks to China. Opening the door to greater foreign competition would force inefficient Chinese industries to adopt reforms that the government has been pushing for.

The Wall Street Journal