Gaopeng Law Firm is pleased to announce that Mr.Tang Xiaobing,a former senior WTO official,recently joined Gaopeng Law Firm as a senior consultant.

Mr.Tang has served in the WTO Secretariat for 18 years.He is the first Chinese person to enter the WTO after China joined the WTO in December 2001.He retired from the position of Senior Counsellor of the WTO Market Access Department on December 31,2020.He is the first Chinese person from more than 60 countries and regions to work until retirement among 550 WTO international staff.

During his work at the WTO,Mr.Tang has long been responsible for the negotiation and drafting of agreements on market access for non agricultural products,as well as the implementation of trade facilitation measures,as well as the drafting and implementation of the Information Technology Agreement from beginning to end.He is an authoritative expert on this agreement in the WTO.Mr.Tang also served as the author of the reports of several expert groups on dispute settlement cases.Before joining the WTO,Mr.Tang served as a trade official at the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development for 16 years,engaging in a large number of negotiations and agreement drafting and implementation work in industrial manufactured goods,especially international textile trade,and service trade.

Wang Lei,director of Gaopeng Law Firm,highly praised Mr.Tang's joining."We welcome Mr.Tang to return to China from the WTO and move his office from the WTO Building in Geneva to Gaopeng Law Firm in Beijing.Mr.Tang is indeed the first person in China to have 35 years of uninterrupted experience in multilateral trade affairs at the United Nations and WTO.His rich knowledge and international experience are invaluable assets for China.I believe that his joining will bring unprecedented positive improvements not only for Gaopeng but also for the entire Chinese trade law community。”

Mr.Tang Xiaobing graduated from Beijing University of Foreign Trade(now China University of International Business and Economics)and Pace University in the United States with a Master of Laws degree and Chinese lawyer qualification.In the late 1970s,he served in the Ministry of Foreign Trade(now the Ministry of Commerce)of China and was the first official in the former Ministry of Foreign Trade to be responsible for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(the predecessor of the WTO)and multilateral trade negotiations.Subsequently,he has been engaged in multilateral trade affairs at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the WTO for 35 years.

(This article is translated by software translator for reference only.)