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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