The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) lately issued a circular, making a new regulation on granting private enterprises import and export autonomy.

The regulation says that China will abolish the original examination and approval system on the qualification for handling import and export business, and in its place will introduce a system of registration and ratification. This change means completely lifting restriction on the accession of private enterprises into the economic and foreign trade field.

The circular regulates that private enterprises each with registered capital not less than 5 million yuan (not less than 3 million yuan in central and western regions) can apply for the right to handle foreign trade business. Enterprises with registered capital not less than 3 million yuan (not less than 2 million yuan in central and western and ethnic minority regions), research institutes, high-tech firms and electromechanical enterprises not less than 1 million yuan) can apply for import and export right. Related departments shall decide whether or not to allow registration within 10 work days after receipt of the application

Prior to this, on January 1, 1999 and January 1, 2000, MOFTEC had twice relaxed controls on approving import and export rights, some 1,000 enterprises had been granted rights to do import and export business. The change made this time as mentioned above is actually tantamount to lifting the restriction on the accession of private enterprises into the economic and foreign trade field.

MOFTEC made the decision at a time when China's export volume witnessed a sharp drop of 26 percentage points in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.

(People's Daily 08/02/2001)