Xie Xuren, vice-minister of the < a href="http://www.setc.gov.cn/english/index_e.htm">State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC), said at the global sourcing forum held Monday in Nanjing of east China's Jiangsu Province that deregulating the commercial sector is one of the important components of China's overall opening-up policy, and the country will gradually deregulate its commodity sectors such as wholesale, retail, franchise and other distribution services over the next two to five years.

China will keep its WTO commitments by introducing statutes concerning foreign investment in this field, and opening the sector even wider to the free market, he noted.

China will pay special attention to opening up chain-store businesses and the complementary logistics, encourage the introduction of advanced logistics experience and technologies and facilitate foreign capital to help upgrade China's traditional commercial businesses.

In addition, China will encourage foreign investors to develop businesses such as large-scale shopping malls, middle-sized supermarkets and specialized shops, which are not widely established in the country, he said, adding that China will also guide the inflow of foreign capital so that it can go where it is most profitable.

While facilitating the inflow of foreign capital, China will pay even greater attention to the introduction of advanced technology and management expertise, and encourage domestic distribution businesses to expand to other countries.

Statistics show that from 1992 to date, China's State Council has ratified more than 40 foreign-invested commercial companies with a capital inflow of over three billion U.S. dollars. Over half of the world's top 50 retailers have invested in China.

(People's Daily April 23, 2002)