Chapter 2.5: The Opening-up of the Service Sector in China

Shi Yonghai, Chairman, China Association of International Trade After China's accession to the WTO the service sector will be opened up conditionally in several stages in accordance with WTO regulations and the related laws of China.

Telecommunications

• Within the first year after China's accession to WTO, network services ( mainly Internet Service Providers) shall be opened up as a first step.

• Starting from the second year after the WTO accession, geographical restrictions will be relaxed gradually on value-added services, such as cellular communication, wireless paging services and Internet.

• Starting from the third year after the accession, cable network and optical cable services will start to open up and there will be no geographical restrictions on value-added services. The tariff restrictions on semiconductors, computers, computer equipment, telecommunications equipment and other high-tech products will be eliminated.

• Starting from the fourth year after the accession, the restrictions on the share of foreign investment in basic telecommunication services will be raised from 25 per cent at the initial stage of accession to 49 per cent. In value-added service areas such as paging, data compression and forwarding, the maximum share of foreign investment will be increased to 50 per cent from 30 per cent in the initial stage of opening-up.

• Starting from the fifth year after the accession, geographical restrictions on the import of pagers and cellular phones as well as the services of the domestic fixed line network will start to be phased out for complete network services.

• Starting from the sixth year after the accession, cable network and optical cable services will be completely opened up.

^[*] This chapter was originally written in Chinese and was translated by Li Yong.