Enactment of a special law on the protection of classified commercial information is imperative to protect enterprises away from economic losses and propel the drive to enhance innovation capacity, a lawmaker said here Monday.

A total of six Chinese laws have articles concerning commercial secrets, but it seems that the scattered regulations did not forcefully rein in the rampant violation of commercial secrets, said Kong Weiliang, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), the legislature, that is going to close its ten-day annual session Tuesday.

Many enterprises have been alluring senior technicians and high-ranking managers from their rivals with higher pay and affluent welfare policies, in a bid to get confidential business information, said Kong, chairman of the board of the China Silian Instrument Group Co Ltd in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

"My firm has suffered disastrously from the scam," Kong complained, stressing that preventive measures are more important than ex post facto punishments.

Some ill-fated companies have failed in recovering their benefits in fear of chronically judicial process and facing sporadic protectionism that always offers shelter to local enterprises despite their crimes, according to Kong.

The law on commercial secrets should empower local courts to suspend key technical personnel or senior management officers from getting a new employment for a certain period of time, if their original firms raise the request, Kong suggested.

"Filching commercial information will snuff out enterprises' innovation endeavor," which runs counter to the initiatives of improving innovative capacity and intellectual property protection promoted by the central authority, said Kong, claiming that a new law will help to clamp down the theft of classified business information.

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2006)