Society of WTO Research & Development

The SIFT Society of WTO Research and Development (SWORD), an academic organization inside SIFT having had valuable support from relevant circles outside the school, was set up after the approval of the SIFT President Administrative Meeting to conduct research mainly along the line of proposing China's strategic countermeasures after her accession to WTO. Based on the principle of seeking depth of learning from breadth of reading, SWORD analyzes issues and challenges facing post-WTO China on a broader scale so as to build a strategic point in the domain of WTO research for SIFT in Shanghai or even in the whole country. Doctor Wang Xinkui, president of SIFT, has been appointed chairman of SWORD, and Doctor Wang Guangxi, an expert on WTO affairs, has been named its executive chairman. Professor Wang Yaotian, a distinguished WTO expert in China, has been invited to serve as honorary chairman of SWORD.

Research projects of SWORD fall into ten major categories: basic rules of WTO, China's accession to WTO and China's economy, agricultural and textile products, rules of market entry for commodity trade, rules of market entry for service trade, trade-related intellectual property rights, trade and investment, China's accession to WTO and trade remedial measures, new agendas and new round of negotiations, translation of WTO-related classical works.

Using the Journal of WTO Affairs and Research and the Journal of WTO Affairs and Research (electronic edition) as an academic forum, SWORD shares research ideas and results among its members. News of major academic activities and achievements of SWORD are circulated among its members in the form of a Reference Bulletin . To promote academic research among its members and to provide an incentive in key research in the hope of getting early results, SWORD set up the Research and Development Achievement Award, which is presented by the Research and Development Achievement Evaluation Board once a year.

The membership of SWORD consists of individual members and organizational members. SWORD sticks to the principle that its members are free to join and leave of their own will. The power of decision making is vested in the Plenary Session of SWORD. SWORD has one chairman, one executive chairman, one secretary general, and several assistant secretaries general.

Shortly after it was set up, SWORD has established contacts and cooperation with academic organizations and universities both at home and abroad, such as the WTO Research Association, the Shanghai WTO Affairs Consultation Center, the WTO Shanghai Research Center, the WTO Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics, Wuhan University Law School, and Berkeley Business School, the University of California, the U.S. We believe that with the support from leaders of SIFT and friends of various circles, SWORD will become an academic organization with its influence in WTO research felt not only in Shanghai but throughout the country.