Li Yining said society will also have to adjust to a higher rate of unemployment.

At a national symposium on the WTO and China's legal profession, Li, who serves as vice-chairman of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee under China's lawmaking body, the National People's Congress (NPC), said that to meet these challenges, some laws need to be reconsidered.

One of the laws mentioned by Li was the Corporate Law. He said the law needs to include clauses concerning giving stock rights to elite employees to prevent brain drain expected to result from the more handsome salaries provided by foreign companies.

Li also highlighted the necessity for a law governing investment funds to channel China's significant personal bank savings account funds into investments, in the hope they will help fuel enterprises.

The law, which is expected to include parts on securities investment funds, industrial investment funds and venture capital, is now being drafted by the NPC.

"Our intention is that the law will guarantee that the general public's funds will be invested rationally," said Li.

He also called for a wider opening of industries such as telecommunications and banking to Chinese firms before they are opened to foreign ones to allow them time to prepare for China's WTO entry.

Li said the full-scale development of the non-public sector must proceed to ease the pressures of unemployment.

Li called for a guarantee of bank loans for the non-public sector and the elimination of unfair taxation levied on them.

The two issues have prevented China's non-public sector from getting to a fast lane for development despite new stimulative laws, the latest being the one concerning individual solely owned enterprises.

(China Daily January 10, 2000)