Long Yongtu
龙永图
1942–present
- Vice Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the PRC (1993–2002)
- Chief Negotiator for China's WTO Accession
Biography
Long Yongtu (born 1942) served as Vice Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and as China's chief negotiator for WTO accession from 1993 to 2002, personally leading China's participation in fifteen years of multilateral and bilateral negotiations. He directed the final critical negotiations with the US delegation in November 1999 that produced the China–US bilateral market access agreement, and subsequently contributed to the conclusion of the China–EU agreement. Following China's formal accession on 11 December 2001, he is widely regarded as one of the central architects of that historical process.