Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) has vowed a level playing field for foreign firms despite a recent order to local governments to favor domestic companies when purchasing goods, the government said.
“The Chinese government has always ... insisted on maintaining a market environment of fair competition and will never adopt policies to discriminate against foreign companies,” Wen told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a Thursday phone call, the foreign ministry said on its Web site.
He also said Germany should work with China to oppose protectionism, the statement posted late on Thursday showed.
China has repeatedly warned against protectionism in response to the global economic crisis, but has recently been accused of doing just that.
German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg on Tuesday voiced concerns about Beijing’s recent “Buy China” call and vowed to take measures to prevent damage to Germany’s economy.
“I am deeply concerned about developments in China and will do what I can to avoid any negative consequences for Germany’s exporters,” zu Guttenberg was quoted as saying in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily. “In times of crisis, there is a temptation to seal off the domestic economy with protectionist measures. That is the wrong answer, as we learned during the last big global economic crisis in the 1980s.”
Earlier this month, China’s National Development and Reform Commission ordered local governments to favor domestic companies when carrying out projects that are part of a massive anti-crisis stimulus package.
“For government procurement, apart from cases where products and services are not available domestically or cannot be acquired on reasonable commercial terms, domestic products should be purchased,” the top economic planning agency said.
The call for preferential treatment for Chinese firms followed claims by domestic businesses that a large part of Beijing’s stimulus money had gone into foreign pockets, Chinese media reports said.
The Wen-Merkel talks came after German industrial group Siemens was reported to have earlier this week said it expects to land orders worth US$2.9 billion over the next three years as part of China’s stimulus package.
However, the European Chamber of Commerce said recently that China “seems to have readily wiped foreign providers out of the country’s 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus package.”
Separately, China is expected to conclude an investment agreement with ASEAN before the group’s October meeting in Phuket, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday in Beijing.
The two governments signed accords this week, including an agreement for China to import Thai agricultural products and enhance investments, he said.
Abhisit also said that Chinese companies have expressed their interest to participate in Thailand’s plan to expand the nation’s rail network.
Thailand needs to upgrade some of the nation’s railway tracks, lay double tracking, connect routes with a network planned by ASEAN and enable high-speed trains in some sectors, Abhisit said.
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