Less Government Control over China's IT Industry Called

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Less Government Control over China's IT Industry Called

Senior business executives and scholars called for less government control and a better legal system for the development of China's booming information industry at the China Development Forum conference Tuesday.

When Wu Jichuan, China's minister of Information Industry, predicted in a report that the nation's information industry will grow at an annual rate of 20 percent over the next decade, business leaders and scholars attending the forum responded warmly by offering their suggestions and advice for the explosively growing industry.

Lawrence Lau, professor at Stanford University, said that China has to reconstruct its information infrastructure to embrace the web economy, of which a sound legal system is the vital part. Robert Hormats, vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs International, USA, cited the example of Brazil, where over- protection of the computer industry hurt both local consumers and manufactures in the long run.

The Internet can serve as a "seamless interface" between China and the world, and foreign companies are very confident of its future in China, but problems will arise if the government imposes too much regulation, he said.

A senior research fellow from the organizer of the forum, the Development Research Center under China's State Council, said that problems with China's existing laws and regulations on the information industry have aroused disputes.

The charge for telecommunications service, for example, the " installment fee" that must be paid before a telephone can be installed, and the two-way charging of cell phones users and callers, have met with increasing criticism from the public, he said.

"Many of the laws and regulations are out-of-date and there still is not a complete legal system on information technology," he pointed out, saying that lack of transparency in existing laws and regulations, as well as over-regulation from government bureaucracies have caused some foreign investors to lose interest.


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	Senior business executives and scholars called for less government control and a better legal system for the development of China's booming information industry at the China Development Forum conference Tuesday.




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