Official: China's anti-monopoly enforcement ‘not selective'
- By Zhang Lulu
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 11, 2014
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Chinese officials said during a press briefing on Thursday that recent anti-monopoly enforcement was not unfairly targeting foreign firms. [Photo/China.org.cn] |
China's anti-monopoly enforcement crackdown is "not selective," officials said during a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
The comment has come amid concerns that China's anti-monopoly probes have unfairly targeted foreign companies such as Microsoft, Qualcomm and some automobile firms.
Xu Kunlin, head of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said that the enforcement of anti-trust law is "in accordance with legal procedures and not targeted at any specific foreign firms," adding that the NDRC's probe into all four kinds of anti-trust activity initiated under China's Anti-Monopoly Law began with probes into domestic companies' practices.
The NDRC has reviewed 335 anti-monopoly cases, only 33 of which have involved foreign-invested firms, according to the news statement released at the anti-trust briefing Thursday.
Shang Ming, head of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau at the Ministry of Commerce, also denied that China's anti-monopoly probe was intended to help domestic industries or companies, saying that anti-trust probes will necessarily benefit some industries and companies, but that the Ministry of Commerce's investigations did not target any specific industry or business entity.
As the number of anti-trust probes has mounted over the past two years, Shang told China.org.cn that anti-monopoly cases leveled off at 200 to 220 annually from 2011 to 2013, adding that there may be a slight increase in cases this year due to the increasing number of mergers and acquisitions.
A total of 149 anti-trust cases have been filed with the Ministry of Commerce as of August this year, and 148 of them have been registered.
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