Tian Fengshan, minister of land and resources, said at the National Meeting on the Land and Resources that WTO rules and China's pledge to keep those rules as a member country will have an inevitable influence on domestic resource management.

Nowadays, no country could develop solely on domestic resource supplies, said the minister, adding that WTO access has surely increased chances for China to optimize its own resource consumption with global supplies.

There is also a higher demand for China to open such fields as resource exploration and production to foreign investors. The global trade system of the WTO is conducive to implementing China's "Two-Way Investment Strategy", which encourages competent Chinese companies to invest abroad while stimulating the utilization of foreign investment, he said.

Meanwhile, the ministry is conducting an all-round and scientific evaluation of the negative international factors brought about by China's WTO entry which may influence China's domestic resources strategy, Tian said.

The minister emphasized that China should always properly balance the greater use of foreign resources and the safeguarding domestic resources.

In this respect, the country abides by the principle of making sufficient use of foreign resources while avoiding dependence on the imports, pushing forward international resources exchanges while curbing the outflow of reserves of rare resources from the country, he said.

Tian said that China will increase foreign investment in exploring and developing domestic resources, while actively carrying out geological surveys and strategic resource investigations abroad and improving research on global resource strategies, which would combine in the "Two-Way Investment Strategy."

He also pointed out the continued importance of securing China's food supply by ensuring the basic farmland coverage in the country.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2002)