The Ministry of Commerce has a long list of 104 laws and regulations to be organized from draft form this year, according to its first commercial legal meeting held in Hangzhou Thursday.

The majority focus on internal trade, where a legal framework is still at a tentative stage. The rest are supplements to the newly-revised Foreign Trade Law, an official from the ministry's treaty and law department said.

At the top of the list is the anti-monopoly law, which has been a focus in China in recent months.

A draft of the anti-monopoly law was submitted to the State Council's Legislative Affairs Office in March and distributed to related departments and local governments, the official said.

The law is listed on the 10th National People's Congress legislative agenda, but the draft still demands further revision.

The absence of such a law is proving to be a source of major concern.

Multinational companies are exploiting the situation and abusing their dominant position to curb competition, warned a recent report from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which called for the legislative process to be accelerated.

The ministry official pledged that efforts would be made to speed up the process.

Besides the anti-monopoly law, he said many draft regulations have been submitted for State Council review, covering the refined oil market, franchise business, overseas contracted projects, outward investment and overseas labor.

And other regulations on chain business management, commercial layouts, representative offices of foreign companies and alcohol distribution are being drafted, according to the official.

China's internal trade area is poorly catered for by the legal system, with just one law on auctions and one regulation dealing with the slaughter of pigs.

In the foreign trade area, dozens of regulations are being prepared to support the revised Foreign Trade Law, which is set to be enacted in days, the official said.

The law, which was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on April 6 this year, will come into force as of July 1.

The draft measures for registering import-export operators have been published for public comment and are expected to be implemented soon.

The new law, which allows individuals to become operators of import-export businesses and removes some restrictive qualifications for foreign trade operators in accordance with China's WTO commitments, says foreign trading rights can be obtained through registration rather than licensing.

Besides improvements in the legal environment, Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong said the current policies on foreign investment will continue to attract investment inflow.

Ma said foreign investment in China is growing at a moderate rate, and the composition of the investment continued to optimize in the first five months of the year.

She stressed that foreign investment in some overheated sectors was at a reasonable level, and did not contribute to the problem of overheating.

China has recently taken steps to slow overheated industries such as steel, cement and aluminum. Authorities have raised bank reserve requirements and curbed loans to these sectors.

"There is no data showing that foreign investment in the sectors of steel, cement and aluminium is excessive," she said.

Foreign investment in 2004 may roughly match or exceed the US$53.5 billion invested in 2003, she said.

In the first five months of 2004, China attracted US$25.9 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI), up 11.3 percent from the same period a year earlier. The figure rose 1.4 percent in 2003 to US$53.5 billion.

Ma also said China's foreign trade this year is forecast to reach US$1 trillion, up 17 percent on a year-on-year basis.

In the first five months of this year, China had a trade deficit of US$8.66 billion.

Total exports in the first five months rose 33.4 percent to US$207.59 billion and imports reached US$216.25, up 41 percent year-on-year.

(China Daily June 23, 2004)