Beginning June 1, Beijing's municipal bureau of commerce has more power to approve the setting up of foreign-invested supermarkets in the city.

Such an approval used to be granted by the nation's Ministry of Commerce. The change is taken as a move to increase efficiency, sources with the Beijing's Bureau of Commerce said.

According to a set of regulations on foreign-invested commercial businesses, which went into effect on Tuesday, the municipal bureau can approve foreign-invested supermarkets, which do not deal in TV sets, telephones, mail order, Internet cafes and vending machines in addition to other requirements.

The requirements include that the largest floor space of a single supermarket does not exceed 3,000 square meters and the number of supermarkets is no more than three in the city. Or a single supermarket covers an area of less than 300 square meters, and it has no more than 30 outlets in the city.

The convenience store chain 7-11 from the United States and Champion supermarket under the French Carrefour are expected to pace up their expansion as the regulations will reduce their time spent on going through government procedures, official sources said.

Statistics show that the turnover of foreign-invested commercial businesses accounted for 5.6 percent in the total sales volume of consumer goods in Beijing at the beginning of this year and the figure is expected to rise to 15 percent in 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2004)