This article was first published in Asian-Counsel
magazine, issue March 2008 www.pbpress.com
Before and after its accession to the WTO the PRC has made
tremendous efforts in opening its market for foreign investors
in order to be WTO compliant. Somewhat surprisingly though, in
the past year, some industries saw the implementation of new
restrictions rather than relaxation of the existing
regulations. While those restrictions may still be compliant
with the WTO commitments, they nevertheless harm foreign
investors that relied on the prior regulations.
To provide one example, last year a specialist sector in the
industry of automotive suppliers, namely suppliers for car
navigation systems, was severely hit by new regulations issued
by the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping
("SBSM"). Until recently, commercial surveying and
mapping in the PRC was allowed under PRC law for foreign
invested companies
