Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai(R) talks with representatives attending the 18th APEC Ministerial Meeting closed in Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov. 16, 2006.  (Xinhua Photo)

China is committed to providing an open, transparent and highly efficient environment for business people to facilitate trade and investment liberalization, China's top commercial official said in Hanoi Thursday.

"Up to date, over 40 percent of the technical regulations in China have adopted international standards, compared with only 12 percent in 1978," said Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai at the just-concluded ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC).

On facilitating the movement of business people, he said that China had issued more than 6,700 APEC business traveling cards since the system was introduced in November 2003.

And more than 3,000 foreigners in the country has been granted the status of permanent residence since China adopted its own "green card" system in 2004, he said, adding that the country's customs procedures have also been greatly simplified.

Bo said that economic cooperation among APEC members should focus on substantial results, which call for enhanced collective action.

He called on APEC members to further simplify customs procedures to improve efficiency, suggesting that by 2010, major customs in all APEC members be handled with electronic equipment.

The minister stressed the importance of common development, noting that concrete measures should be taken to help developing members of APEC to improve their capacity building to facilitate trade.

Also speaking at the meeting, Deputy Chinese Minister of Commerce Yi Xiaozhun said that APEC should care about the "issue of development" in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

"The developed members should understand the difficulties confronting developing members in IPR protection and encourage them in this regard," he said. All sides should carry out economic and technical cooperation in a substantial manner, help developing members in their economic development and improve their capacity of IPR protection to promote the forming of a fully-fledged system of IPR protection, he said.

Yi also called for the establishment of custom information exchange mechanism to crack down on cross-border crimes relating to IPR, claiming that such crimes are running rampant worldwide.

"The Chinese side hopes to solve the issue of cross-border IPR crimes through APEC members' unremitting efforts and sincere cooperation," he said.

Editor: Donald