Non-state-owned enterprises should enjoy the "national treatment" after China joined the World Trade Organization, according to economist Wu Jinglian.
Wu, a Standing Committee member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, China's top advisory body, said that when government departments are now screening rules and regulations contradicting WTO rules, non-state-owned enterprises should not be discriminated against.
He said, "The rapid development of the private sector has been playing a significant role in China's economic growth. Moreover, the private sector has also helped governments at all levels solve long-standing problems."
These problems the urban unemployment, the transfer of redundant rural labor and the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. "So, we must give vigorous support to the development of private companies and other non-state-owned enterprises," he noted. The sectors that will be opened to foreign investors should be opened to domestic investors first, he said
(People's Daily March 8, 2002)
