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China Issues Licenses to Survey Agents of Foreign Companies
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) issued licenses to 29 Chinese and foreign-funded survey agents to allow them to carry out market investigations for overseas companies Thursday.
This is the first group of survey agents that have received such licenses in China. Ten of them are foreign-funded.
Upon today's approval, they will be able to conduct market surveys of products and services for companies and organizations from outside China.
NBS deputy director Zhai Ligong told a press conference held here today that survey agents that are not granted with the license will not be allowed to conduct surveys for overseas clients from October.
NBS official Xiong Zhennan said that NBS will issue licenses to more agents in the next few months and that there will be no limit on the number of licenses to be issued.
According to new regulations that China adopted on the survey industry last August, only the licensed agents are allowed to conduct surveys for overseas clients in the country. Foreign persons and companies are not allowed to conduct surveys directly in the country. On the other hand, local agents are allowed to conduct surveys for Chinese companies without obtaining a license.
Xiong said that the new regulations is designed to safeguard national security. He also said that the Chinese government has adopted an encouraging approach toward the development of the fledging survey industry in the country.
The new regulations require the licensed agents to report the surveys that they conduct for overseas clients to NBS or its provincial offices. At present, survey agents that are yet to obtain a license must have every survey project for overseas clients approved by NBS.
According to Xiong, NBS has approved several thousand survey projects for overseas companies since last August. He said that only a handful applications have been denied by NBS, including a proposed market survey of a product that the Chinese government prohibits from using foreign investment.
Simon Yun, executive director of Hong Kong-based ACNielsen, said that the license-granting system has helped improve the rate of response to the company's questionnaires because the Chinese people are inclined to trust survey activities approved by the government.
"Fortunately, our concerns and worries about the new regulations did not become true," he said.
He noted that NBS has been very efficient in approving survey projects that his company conducted for overseas clients. Normally, it took only 2-3 days for application and approval. In emergency cases, the whole process can be completed in 24 hours.
NBS Deputy Director Zhai Ligong said that China is encouraging the development of the survey industry and will open up the industry to overseas investment in a proper and steady way.
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