A regulation on the establishment and administration of Chinese-foreign joint talent service companies and Chinese-foreign co-operative talent service companies has been approved by the State and will take effect December 1.

According to the new regulation, joint ventures and co-operative ventures will be the forms of businesses, while foreign-owned human resources intermediary companies will not be allowed.

The companies should have register capital of at least US$300,000 and at least three professional experts who are qualified to be engaged in job intermediation.

In addition, the foreign side should be judicial persons with relevant experience in the field.

The establishment of Sino-foreign talent intermediary organizations requires the approval of the provincial labor and social security authority as well as the foreign trade and economic co-operation administration.

For foreign firms that have been coveting China's giant human resources market, the promulgation of the new regulation is by all means good news.

Actually, foreign investment entered the market long before regulations. Many renowned human resource service companies began their efforts to enter China as early as 10 years ago.

After a decade of development, almost all of the world-class companies have established their businesses in the country.

However, policy restrictions have forced those companies to behave in a low-key manner.

The shaking off of the policy yoke in December is expected to liberate such companies.

It will also make competition in the field much more fierce. By 2000, there were more than 4,100 talent intermediary organizations, 630 of them private.

With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, more companies are emerging, however, most of the domestic companies operate on a small scale.

"The coming of foreign companies would initiate a new round of competition, in which weak and small-scale players would be eliminated," said Professor Zeng Xiangquan at the Renmin University of China.

The opening up of the talent intermediation market will also give Chinese companies opportunities to learn from their foreign counterparts.

All these changes are expected to lead to further specialized services and make the market more international, more competitive and more normative.

(China Daily October 23, 2001)