Business Groups Enumerate Complaints over Chinese Indigenous Innovation Policy

(World Trade Interactive)

Nearly two dozen trade groups from the U.S., Europe and Canada have called on China to eliminate a controversial policy governing the participation of foreign suppliers in Chinese government procurement. This policy will reportedly be one of the top issues raised by U.S. officials at the May 24-25 meeting of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing.

In 2006, China’s State Council adopted a plan that incorporated into China’s national industrial policy the concept of developing indigenous innovation products and giving them preferential treatment in the government procurement process. Later that year several Chinese agencies released a document detailing the requirements a product must meet to be accredited as an indigenous innovation and receive procurement preferences. Some of these requirements, as well as several follow-on actions, raised concerns that foreign companies would be excluded from China’s government procurement market with respect to products such as computer and application hardware, telecommunication hardware, modern office equipment, software, new-energy equipment and highly efficient energy-reducing products. Read more here.