China starts to bring policies in line with WTO

23/11/2001
Beijing has ordered local governments to clean up policies that violate China's accession agreement to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Hunan province, for example, has identified around 1,800 government policies at both provincial and county level that will have to be scrapped.

Various criteria were being applied to determine which policies should be phased out. A local mayor said, "One of them is to see if the market can do the same work, also to check if the policy shows government interference in business, in which case it will be eliminated".