Commerce ministry expands list of restrictions
Beijing will further its overhaul of industries producing low-value exports this year but will be 'flexible' in introducing measures, according to the minister of commerce.
Chen Deming said 'several thousand' types of exports produced by imported raw materials, known as processing trade, were among an expanded category of restrictions planned to cut resources-consuming and pollution-causing industries.
However, Mr Chen said the ministry would retain some labour-intensive, but environment friendly manufacturing, as part of the policy of protecting employment.
The planned measures follow a spate of austerity policies the Ministry of Commerce has unleashed in the past year, including lowering or cancelling tax rebates on about 3,300 types of products covering plastics, metals, textiles and furniture.
The measures, compounded by stubbornly high fuel prices and rising labour costs, have been blamed for scores of factory closures across the hinterlands of the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas. Many of the casualties were Hong Kong investors.
'The new processing trade policies have affected many Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asian investors on the mainland,' Mr Chen said on the sidelines of the National People's Congress. 'But our direction is right, and resources-consuming and highly polluting industries can no longer exist in the country.'