As expounded in the survey among US enterprises in China released on September 16, China made progress in observing its commitments to the World Trade Organization (WTO) from mid-2003 to July 2004. The survey says, a series of regulations concerning trade rights, insurance, auto financing and agriculture have been enacted and the legislator also asked for the opinions of US enterprises beforehand, all these are what the American Chamber of Commerce hopes China to keep on.

The survey was jointly conducted by AmCham-China and AmCham-Shanghai. According to Jim Grandoville, chairperson of AmCham-China, 238 member companies of AmCham-China answered the questionnaire seriously. Optimistic about the benefits China's entry of WTO brought along, twice as many as those in 2003 plan to expand their companies in China. 61 percent of the surveyed say that China is praiseworthy in its compliance with its WTO commitments and they have noticed that related commitments have been in place in time. Two thirds of the enterprises are confident in a "soft landing" by China's central government, despite the fact of an overheated economy.

A sharp criticism is seen in the survey on the Visa policy of the United States, which incurs an annual several-billion loss on US companies. It also calls for the US government to better balance commercial development and the needs of security, to enlarge personnel and funding for non-immigrant Visa departments under the US Embassy to China. Meanwhile, the US government is requested to seek sustained enhancement of working efficiency, improve the standards of security evaluation and increase the transparency of Visa approval.

The survey also points out that with a business environment greatly improved, China still has a long way to go in terms of intellectual property rights. AmCham-China welcomes the measures for protecting intellectual property rights mentioned by Chinese Vice Prime Minister Wu Yi earlier this month. Sources say in the upcoming weeks the survey will be delivered to related officials of China and the United States through direct meeting between concerned governmental arms of both countries.

By People's Daily Online