External trade and income distribution

51. Commends the government for preserving macroeconomic stability, and welcomes the return to growth; notes, however, that income convergence has been slow and shares the concern existing as to whether the public deficit target of 2.6 % by 2016 will be met and how public finances will be consolidated; recommends that the Commission should award the country ‘functioning market economy status’; invites the government to act in accordance with the principles of CEFTA and the WTO regarding the terms of foreign trade;

Notice on Printing and Distribution of 2003 Policies for Encouraging and expanding Foreign Trade Export to Shandong, LWJMJCZ, [2003] No 180;

Notice on Printing and Distribution of 2006 Policies for Encouraging the Development of Foreign Trade Economic Cooperation in Shandong, LCQ [2006] No 5.

14. Emphasises also Unctad’s argument that the premature and rapid trade liberalisation that many low-income developing countries were encouraged to undertake in the 1980s and 1990s led to de-industrialisation and a form of integration that intensified their dependence on, and vulnerability to, external markets, while the countries that have benefited the most from trade liberalisation and have experienced the largest reductions in absolute poverty are those that have opened their economies moderately and gradually in line with the development of their productive capacities, and have made progress towards structural transformation;