BIZCHINA / IT Industry
WTO Commitments
Updated: 2006-04-18 11:25
Telecom Industry's WTO Commitments
1. Basic Telecommunication Services
As for paging services, foreign service suppliers will be permitted to
establish joint venture (JV) enterprises without quantitative
restrictions and provide services in and between the cities of Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Beijing. Foreign investment in JVs will be no more than 30
per cent upon China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
One year after China's accession areas will be expanded to include
services in and between the cities of Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou,
Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Xi'an,
Taiyuan and Wuhan, and foreign investment will not exceed 49 percent. Two
years after China's accession there will be no geographic restrictions
and foreign investment will not exceed 50 percent.
As for mobile services, including analogue/digital, cellular services and
personal communications services, upon China's accession, foreign service
suppliers will be permitted to establish Sino-foreign JVs without
quantitative restrictions and provide services in and between the cities
of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. Foreign investment in the JVs will
not exceed 25 percent.
One year after accession the areas will be expanded to include services
in and between the cities of Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou,
Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Xi'an,
Taiyuan and Wuhan, and foreign investment will not exceed 35 percent.
Three years after the accession, foreign investment will not exceed 49
percent. Within five years of the accession there will be no geographic
restrictions.
Within three years of China's accession, foreign service suppliers will
be permitted to establish JV enterprises without quantitative
restrictions and provide services in and between the cities of Shanghai,
Guangzhou and Beijing in domestic services, including voice services,
packet-switched data-transmission services, circuit-switched data
transmission services, facsimile services, domestic private-leased
circuit services and international services, including voice services,
packet-switched data-transmission services, circuit-switched
data-transmission services, facsimile services and international closed
user-group voice and data services (use of private-leased circuit
services is permitted). Foreign investment in the JVs will not exceed 25
percent.
Within five years of accession the areas will be expanded to include
services in and between the cities of Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou,
Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Xi'an,
Taiyuan and Wuhan. Foreign investment will not exceed 35 percent. Within
six years of accession there will be no geographic restrictions and
foreign investment will not exceed 49 percent.
2. Value-Added Services
Foreign service suppliers will be permitted to establish JV value-added
telecommunications enterprises without quantitative restrictions and
provide services in the cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing in
value-added services, including electronic mail, voice mail, online
information and database retrieval, electronic data interchange,
value-added facsimile services (including store and forward, store and
retrieve), code and protocol conversion and online information and/or
data processing (including transaction processing). Foreign investment in
the JVs will not exceed 30 percent.
Within one year of China's accession the areas will be expanded to
include the cities of Chengdu, chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Hangzhou,
Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Xi'an, Taiyuan and
Wuhan and foreign investment will not exceed 49 percent. Within two years
of China's accession there will be no geographic restrictions and foreign
investment will not exceed 50 percent.
As for the presence of natural persons in the basic and value-added
service sector, managers, executives and specialists defined as senior
employees of a corporation of a WTO member that has established a
representative office, branch or subsidiary in the territory of the
People's Republic of China temporarily moving as intra-corporate
transferees, will be granted entry for an initial three years.
Managers, executives and specialists defined as senior employees of a
corporation of WTO members engaged in foreign-invested enterprises in the
territory of the People's Republic of China for conducting business, will
be granted a long-term residence permit as stipulated in the terms of
contracts concerned, or an initial three-year stay (whichever is shorter).
Service salespersons - persons not based in the territory of the People's
Republic of China not receiving remuneration from a source located within
China and who are engaged in activities related to representing a service
supplier for the purpose of negotiation for selling services of that
supplier where:(a) such sales are not directly made to the general public
and (b) the salesperson is not engaged in supplying the service. Entry
for such salespersons will be limited to a 90-day period.
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