Changzhou City Government Adopts WTO-Inspired Transparency Measure

Officials in Changzhou city, Jiangsu province, announced in November that the city government would no longer enforce regulatory documents [guifanxing wenjian] that have not been published first in the local newspaper, the government's gazette, or another publication specified by the city government, according to a December 8 article (in Chinese) in the Legal Daily. The new policy is consistent with the key WTO principle of transparency. Part 1, Section 2(C) of China’s Protocol of Accession to the WTO requires that the Chinese government publish any trade-related measure for comment before making it effective, and also provide "a reasonable period for comment to the appropriate authorities before such measures are implemented." In the Circular Regarding the Program to Submit Proposals to the City Government's 2006 Plan for Drafting Regulatory Documents, the Changzhou government says that, "[a]ccording to the principle of the WTO 'principle of openness and transparency,' there is generally one month between the time that regulatory documents and other policies and proceedings are promulgated and the time that they are implemented." The public can conveniently "inspect and review" any such draft measure before the government makes it effective if it has been published in one of the three approved media, according to the Circular. The Circular does not address whether the city government intends to accept or respond to comments on the published drafts.

The CECC found the Chinese government's compliance with the requirement to publish trade-related measures to be inconsistent in the Commercial Rule of Law and the Impact of the WTO section of the 2005 Annual Report. The Changzhou circular, however, provides one example of a local Chinese government working to implement this basic transparency commitment in its regulatory system. The Circular applies not only to trade-related measures covered by the WTO, but also to all regulatory documents issued by the city government's agencies, and thus is a concrete example of the impact of WTO accession on regulatory regimes unrelated to commercial law.