"Preferential policies", " internal memos", "review and approval" and some other once familiar concepts are being phased out in China, since the country became a full member of the World Trade Organization in December.
Instead of preferential policies for local businesses, people are talking more about "national treatment", said Yang Yongchun, an official with the industrial and commercial administration in Dalian, a port city in northeast China's Liaoning Province.
The once prevailing "internal memos" will either develop into open and systematic laws and regulations or be nullified, he said.
"There will be fewer review and approval procedures to go through when the legal system is cleaned up," said Yang.
The Chinese government is reviewing laws and regulations to amend or abrogate any provisions that are inconsistent with the WTO rules or China's commitments. China will also enact new legislation in case of absence of laws or regulations for the WTO purposes, with a view to effectively fulfilling its WTO obligations and commitments.
Over 10,000 papers issued by governments at provincial level are also being reviewed.
The Liaoning provincial government has reduced its intervention in business activities by abolishing over 50 percent of the review and approval procedures.
Government intervention is only necessary for those few sectors that involve the allocation of state resources, and established laws and regulations will govern all other business activities, said Yang.
The changes brought by WTO, therefore, do not simply lie in China's economic life, but in the ways people think and talk, said Lin Muxi, president of the Economic Management Institute of the Liaoning University.
"Officials need to re-examine the traditional concepts and practices against the WTO rules," said an official with the provincial economic and trade department.
One example he cited was "non-governmental business", and transitional, all-inclusive concept that is used to refer to all business types except those owned by the state.
"'Non-governmental business' will be used less often now that China is a member of WTO," he said, "We will use 'private' or ' joint-stock' businesses in line with the international practice."
Conceptual changes mirror social changes, said Wu Bin, a research fellow at the provincial academy of social sciences, " After all, the concrete measures taken by the government to fulfill its WTO commitments are catalyst to such changes."
Most economists here expressed their confidence that in the post-WTO scenario, the average Chinese will value impartial, open and transparent competitions and China will merge more with the global economy.
( January 17, 2002)
