The government's decision last week to relax its control over
foreign-invested companies' import and export rights is a key way
to boost slack export growth this year, experts said.
The
Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC)
will allow foreign-invested manufacturing companies to export any
non-monopolized products not under quota or license management,
regardless of who made the products, according to a notice last
week.
Although MOFTEC also ruled that these companies must export at
least US$10 million each year and must not have broken laws and
rules on taxation, foreign exchange and foreign trade in the last
two years, experts said the measure is extensive and could have
considerable impact on China's export growth this year.
"Manufacture companies are the pillar force in foreign-invested
companies' export and the threshold of US$10 million export each
year is not very high for them,'' said Zhang Yaxiong, a researcher
with the State Information Center.
He
said the measure is a big step towards relaxing government control
over trading rights.
"This could enable foreign-invested companies to make full use of
their sales networks and channels abroad to boost China's
exports,'' said Long Guoqiang, a researcher with the Development
Research Center under the State Council.
China's export growth is expected to slow dramatically from last
year's 28 percent increase due to weak external demand and last
year's particularly large increase.
Some economists say there could be no growth year-on-year for
2001.
But the others say it could still up to 8 percent from last year if
the government adopts more trade liberalization measures like this
one.
Foreign-invested companies accounted for half of China's total
exports in the first six months of the year. Their export volume
increased 16.9 percent in that period to US$62.3 billion, while the
overall increase for China was 8.8 percent.
"China's overall export growth could accelerate by a half of a
percentage point for every 1 percentage point of extra growth by
foreign-invested companies' export,'' Long said.
MOFTEC said the measure was taken to prepare China for its pending
entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
China has promised to let all companies conduct foreign trade
business within three years of WTO accession, widely expected by
the end of the year.
(China Daily 07/24/2001)