The city will team up with neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to set up a series of professional organizations and associations to regulate business markets in the Yangtze River Delta region.

The news, which was released at a press conference yesterday, comes after the city issued a five-year plan about aiding cooperatives and underdeveloped western regions.

The professional organizations and associations will mainly involve business and service industries - such as integrated circuit, software and property right exchange - in the next five years.

Associations will be responsible for setting up unified business service standards, streamlining market management as well as ruling out business monopoly behavior among companies in the region, according to the plan.

Jiao Yang, a city government spokeswomen, said the organization was expected to coordinate business company behavior in the region and foster a competitive market.

At present, most professional association and organizations are restricted within their own administrative region and unable to take part in cross-regional business regulation and mediation, officials said.

(Shanghai Daily May 15, 2007)