More changes have been made in the draft amendments to the Sino-foreign joint venture law following the scrutiny by nearly 3,000 NPC deputies at the ongoing Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), said Wang Weicheng Wednesday.
Reporting on the outcome of the discussions on amendments of the joint venture law to the presidium of the annual session, Wang, chairman of the NPC Law Committee, said that the law committee deemed it necessary to make amendments to the joint venture law and to invest the power of revising the law with the National People's congress in order to serve the needs of further opening to the outside world and accelerating the process of China's accession to the WTO.
The Law Committee, therefore, has made a number of other changes in the draft amendments based on the propositions by NPC deputies, he said.
Additions to the draft include the establishment of trade unions in joint ventures according to law, which will carry out activities and safeguard their legal rights and interests, while the companies are required to provide trade unions with necessary conditions to facilitate their activities.
New revisions include the inclusion of such contents as employment, dismissal, remuneration, welfare, labor protection and labor insurance in the labor contract.
The existing joint venture law requires joint venture companies to buy insurance policies from Chinese insurers, but in the draft amendment, "Chinese insurers" are changed into "insurers in China", thus bringing it into line with the insurance law.
In the existing joint venture law, these firms are required to put their disputes to arbitration. The amendment adds that a case may be brought before the People's Court if joint venture partners fail to include arbitration articles in their contracts or parties involved fail to reach written arbitration agreement.
Wang noted that deputies also made other proposals, all associated with the new situations and new problems, but the Law Committee held that these proposals merit attention, but considering the complexity and the number of problems involved, they should be studied separately and could be submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for discussion at a proper time.
Deputies attending Wednesday's meeting voted for Wang's report and agreed that the revised draft of the joint venture law will be distributed to all the delegations for further discussion before being submitted to the plenary session for approval.
(Xinhua 03/14/2001)
