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.