A high-level Chinese trade official said a draft to amend laws
pertaining to foreign trade has been completed and will be
submitted to the State Council in a few days.
According to Zhang Yuqing, director of the Department of Treaty and
Law of the Ministry of Commerce, legislators are expected to
deliberate the draft law later this year after it has been approved
by the State Council, China's cabinet.
The draft seeks to offer domestic enterprises more avenues of
redress to resolve disputes involving foreign trade barriers, Zhang
said.
Once ratified, the draft will also further reform the legal system
to meet China's commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
while striking a better balance between compliance to the
international trade organization's rules and the needs of domestic
enterprises, said Zhang.
He
explained that, with the gloomy world economy, many countries are
erecting unreasonable barriers on trade and abusing anti-dumping
measures, creating a need for counter-measures.
In
order to address this situation, the draft lays out guidelines to
facilitate investigations into the legality of trade barriers
erected by foreign countries, offering domestic firms an official
path for redress.
Under the new law, Chinese enterprises will be able to conduct
investigations, turn to arbitration and even resort to the WTO to
solve trade barrier or discrimination cases, which go against WTO
principles, he said.
China is now the world's leading victim of anti-dumping and
safeguard measures in international trade. Since the 1990s, one out
of every six anti-dumping cases involved Chinese products.
As
of the end of last October, 544 anti-dumping and safeguard measures
investigations in 33 countries and regions involved China. However,
China only initiated 20 of such cases.
Further, the amendment will for the first time define private
individuals as parties able to engage in foreign trade - a move to
facilitate private foreign trade business, insiders said.
An
expert from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic
Co-operation, who declined to be named, said, while China's WTO
promises have set out rules for foreign companies engaged in
import-export activities in the mainland market, domestic private
companies have not been given a legal position.
"The identification of private individuals as foreign traders under
the law will strengthen the position of domestic private players in
the field," he said.
Since China started to relax control on domestic private
businesses' entrance to the foreign trade sector in 1999, only
20,000 enterprises have gained trading rights, according to
official statistics.
However, the draft amendment will change the approval system into a
registration system for foreign trade business, a move to further
open the field, said Zhang.
New stipulations on service and technology trade will be introduced
with the law, which will only focus on goods traded, Zhang
said.
The draft amendment also incorporates related WTO rules as general
principles, and details tariff, quota and national treatment
issues.
(China Daily April 8, 2003)