WTO Financial Services Trade Law And The Improvement Of Chinese Financial Services Law

Compared with cargo trade, service trade is a new field of WTO multilateral trade system, and is governed by General Agreement on Trade in Services. Financial service trade is the most important part of service trade field. WTO financial service trade law is an important component of WTO law system and the key content of GATS. WTO financial services trade law is composed of General Agreement on Trade in Services, Annex on Financial Services, Memorandum of the Agreement and WTO Financial Services Agreement which was concluded in 1997. GATS and its Annexes on financial services set principles, definitions and extensions for trade in financial services. Memorandum of the Agreement is the specific commitment of the WTO members concerning the national treatment and the market access. FSA is mainly composed of schedules of specific commitment concerning financial services by WTO member governments and embodies their level in liberalizing trade in financial services.After 15 years hard negotiation, On Dec, 11, 2001, China formally joined WTO. After the entry into WTO, Chinese government made a series of amendments to the financial service law system to meet the requirements of WTO. However, there are still a lot of things must be done to narrow the gap between WTO requirements and Chinese financial service law system.This paper is composed of three chapters. The first chapter reviews the origination of WTO financial services trade law. The second chapter introduces the components and the main, contents of WTO financial services trade law. The final chapter firstly introduces the present financial services law system in China and China's commitments of WTO, then reviews the amendments to the financial services law system after the entry into WTO, finally puts forward some recommendations on the perfecting of China's financial services law system.