China Claims Trade Depends Upon Investment, Facilitating Investment is Part of Core WTO

[ABS News Service/03.07.2026]

Geneva – China has floated a paper focusing on how work at the World Trade Organization could support trade and investment integration, “thereby advancing industrialization” at the trade body’s Committee on Trade and Developments.

This move comes after members failed to incorporate the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement into Annex 4 of the World Trade Organization’s Marrakesh Agreement at the stalled 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, earlier this year, according to people familiar with the developments.

Contained in documents WT/COMTD/W/311 and WTD/COMTD/AFT/W/101 and issued last Friday, the Chinese proposal also links investment and trade with the Development component of WTO reform.

China states, “Development remains a central pillar of all works of the WTO, including WTO reform.”

In its paper, China argues that “industrialization continues to be one of the most effective pathways for developing economies to build productive capacities, create decent jobs, achieve structural transformation and enhance economic resilience.”

According to China – which has become the world’s largest exporter of capital while emerging as the main extractor of key raw minerals – “global value chains have made trade and investment increasingly integrated and mutually reinforcing.”

China maintains that “trade improves access to regional and global markets, expanding sources of demand and supply”, while stressing that “investment plays a crucial role by improving access to capital and know-how and building productive capacities.”

China attempts to drive home the message that “industrialization could be accelerated through measures to facilitate trade and investment integration, that is, measures to help connect productive capacity enabled through investment with market opportunities and linkages generated by trade.”

China touts that “trade and investment integration could enable economies to better transform trade opportunities into domestic value addition, industrial growth and participation in regional and global value chains,” emphasizing that “this is among the key messages of the High-Level Meeting on Accelerating Africa's Industrialization: China's Investment held on the margins of MC14.”

Central Role for WTO

As part of “next steps:, China argues that “given the central role of industrialization in achieving development, the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) is the appropriate committee to further the discussions on trade and investment integration for industrialization.”

China is pushing for the WTO to take a central role in this area, a concept previously suggested by the Director-General during a past Aid for Trade meeting. “As a initial step, it is suggested that the Secretariat could start to compile and disseminate a compendium of experiences and approaches on integrating trade and investment for industrialization based on Members’ experiences and practices, including voluntary submissions by Members, related discussions under the CTD, as well as impact stories shared for the 10th Aid for Trade Global Review, with key insights reflected in the 10th Aid for Trade Global Review's outcome report.”

Japan Woos Southern Africa for Critical Minerals

In a separate restricted proposal submitted to the CTD (JOB/COMTD/27) last Friday, Japan says “with financial backing from the Government of Japan, UNCTAD launched a comprehensive initiative in March 2025 targeting Madagascar, Namibia, and Zambia. The project aimed to delineate each nation's strategic niche within Critical Energy Transition Minerals (CETM) value chains and to fortify their respective institutional and regulatory frameworks.”

“By leveraging national trade records from tax authorities alongside UN Comtrade statistics, the analysis rigorously assessed existing productive capabilities to identify latent export opportunities,” Japan said.