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Foreign firms laud Chinese WTO reform, want more
SHANGHAI (November 07 2002) : China scores high marks for keeping its WTO promises so far, but endemic problems like hazy rules and disregard for intellectual property will take years to resolve, executives at a forum on WTO affairs said on Wednesday.
Government officials were quick to reassure foreign companies that China would stick to commitments made for joining the World Trade Organisation, which sparked a liberalisation drive to gradually prise open its large but once-shuttered markets.
"We realise that this is a long-term, very daunting task. Two to three years would not solve the problem," said Tian Lipu, deputy commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office.
"For now, we have to start educating the Chinese people on the importance of respecting intellectual property, from primary school all the way up to university," the German-trained Tian told a seminar of about 100 foreign and local businessmen.
But overseas firms, many fighting for access to markets ranging from soyabeans to courier services to banking, urged China to resolve conflicting rules and reduce red tape in applying for operating licences, executives said.
"They get an A for effort, but an F for transparency," said Beth Meade, business development manager at Boston Training Technologies, which teaches business English in Shanghai.
"The strategy is typical, they will circle around the actual regulation", delaying the actual licence or investment, she said.
Executives said provincial or county-level governments often wielded a high degree of autonomy and thus occasionally exercised their own interpretation of China's WTO commitments.
Foreign express couriers, for instance, accuse the State Postal Bureau of preserving its national monopoly after it announced it would limit their scope of business -- and that was only after the trade ministry was asked to intervene.
And multinational trading firms blamed the agricultural ministry for holding up $1 billion in US-China soyabeans trade by issuing incomprehensible regulations in mid-2001.
"It's not a centrally controlled economy. There's a lot of constituencies, a lot of power bases in this country," said Diane Long, general manager of Liz Claiborne International Ltd in China, who has lived in Shanghai the past 15 years.
But overall, foreign observers like what they see so far.
"In some areas there've been problems -- in express delivery, in telecommunications, insurance, legal services," said Robert Vastine, president of the Coalition of Service Industries, which represents US firms like banks and express couriers.
"But this is all part of the transition. I think the main thing is that China's leadership has committed itself to modernise, and to use WTO to modernise," he told Reuters.
The WTO is likely to feature in a policy speech to be made by President Jiang Zemin at the opening of the 16th Communist Party Congress on Friday.
Looking longer term, China is well aware that not enough is being done to protect intellectual property and punish infringements -- a sore point with foreign companies dealing with copy-cat goods, for instance, officials said.
"We will definitely stick to our commitments," said Wang Xinkui, president of the Shanghai WTO Affairs Consultation
Centre. "In every sector, if the commitments say such and such will be opened that year, it will be opened that year".
Courtesy Business Recorder
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Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
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