Xi lures foreign companies with transparency offensive
China is a huge market and of interest to many Western companies. There are always concerns about the possible theft of ideas. President Xi is now trying to dispel these concerns and is prescribing greater transparency and better protection of property rights for his country.
According to state media, China's President Xi Jinping has instructed his country to better protect the rights and intellectual property of international companies. As reported by the state television station CCTV, Xi said at a meeting of the Politburo of the Communist Party that China must ensure the "comprehensive, open and transparent" legal treatment of foreign companies. The Politburo is the most powerful decision-making body of the state.
The Chinese legal system should "strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights" and "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of foreign companies", Xi said. Beijing must create a "market-oriented, legally secure and internationally first-class business environment".
European and US companies in China regularly complain about business conditions in the country, which are burdened by geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing, an anti-espionage law, police raids on multinational corporations and preferential treatment for Chinese competitors. In view of a weakening economy, however, there are signs from Beijing that China wants to lure foreign companies back into the country.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November, Xi had already invited international companies to invest in China and promised "heart-warming" measures "to make it easier for foreign companies to invest and operate in China."
After Xi's transparency offensive, concerns about espionage and intellectual property theft in China decreased among foreign companies. However, instances of corporate corruption still remain a contentious issue in China's business environment. Recently, President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of protecting foreign investments and intellectual property rights at an APEC meeting, aiming to attract more international investments to China.
Source: www.ntv.de
