On October 9, the Ministry of Commerce held the regular news conference, at which the news spokesman Shen Danyang made response to hot-button and sensitive issues drawing high levels of concern from domestic and foreign media. The records are as follows:

1. What are the new characteristics in the domestic consumption market during the National Day holiday when compared with the market situation in the same period last year? What kinds of jobs have specially been done by departments under the Ministry of Commerce in order to guarantee the market supply during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday?

A: During this "National Day" golden week, the domestic consumption market has kept a stable and faster growth. According to the Ministry of Commerce, from October 1 to October 7, the sales volume realized by nationwide retail and catering enterprises amounted to about RMB 1,200 billion, increasing by 10.7% compared with that in the same period last year. The lightspot in sales of apparel, household appliances, automobiles and other goods are outstanding; popular catering, travel and leisure, entertainment and other kinds of service consumption are popular with the public who are very impressed with the green, shared and simple consumption conception; on/offline fusion and innovation are accelerated, and the consumption trend with individualization, diversification and customization has generated; more and more people are pursuing for health food, fashionable closing, high-quality appliances and interesting enjoyment.

In order to well develop the market supply for the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday golden week this year (these "Two Holidays"), we have, prior to the coming of these Two Holidays, specially sent out a notice requiring local competent departments of commerce to prepare adequate deployment, actively build public platforms for consumption promoting during these Two Holidays, practically maintain a stable market supply, and further strengthen the market monitoring and forewarning. Seeing from the actual implementation, local departments of commerce have well done their jobs on market guarantee and supply and consumption promoting during these Two Holidays, which gained a great success. For example, Chongqing Commerce Commission organized distribution firms to carry out centralized purchase of vegetables outside, and monitored the daily market dynamics; in Qingdao City, vegetables, meat, bean products and other reserved commodities put on the market during these Two Holidays amounted to 6,250 tons; in Urumqi Municipality, places for reserved meat supply amounted to 73 during the Eid al-Adha Festival and the Two Holidays, which effectively met the market demands and enriched the market supply during holidays.

2. As we know, these Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Modernization of Domestic Trade Circulation and Building the Law-based Business Environment (these "Opinions") were issued at the end of August last year. In the recent year, what efforts have been done by the Ministry of Commerce to implement these Opinions, and what achievements have been obtained?

A: In recent year, based on the requirements proposed in these Opinions, we have, centering on the transformation of government functions, led by the innovative transformation and guided by the construction of legal environment of business, implemented these Opinions in six aspects.

1) Improving the long-term mechanism for domestic trading circulation. We have issued 11 guidance documents in line with the implementation of these Opinions via reporting to the State Council for approval, which formed the "1+11" documents promoting the modernization of long-term mechanism and the supporting policy system, prepared and implemented the layout plan for node cities of domestic circulation, development plan for agricultural products market system and specialized plan for commerce logistics development, established a standardized information management system for the circulation, and formulated and modified 23 standards for the circulation.

2) Promoting the cost decrease and benefit increase in domestic trading circulation. Based on the promotion of circulation informatization, standardization and intensification, we have implemented the plan - "Internet Plus Circulation", propelled the e-commerce access to communities and rural areas, accelerated the on/offline fusion development, which improved the circulation efficiency. At present, 100 e-commerce demonstration bases, 248 e-commerce demonstration enterprises and a batch of service outlets for the convenience of people's life have been established, which solved issues concerning difficulties in buying vegetables, ordering food, hiring nurses, etc. Rural comprehensive demonstration on e-commerce has been carried out in 496 counties, and 37 thousand rural service stations have been established. The pilot project of logistics standardization has been implemented in 32 cities, choosing 190 key enterprises and entities to carry out the special action on the standardization of commercial logistics, in which the collaborative working performance of key enterprises in supply chains increased by more than 10%, and the comprehensive logistics cost reduced by 10% on average.

3) Building supply mechanisms to expand the consumption. The comprehensive pilot project for reform and development of domestic trading circulation system has been done in Shanghai and other eight cities, which preliminarily sorted out 17 test results and 48 typical experience in and methods for the project; the pilot reform on comprehensive administrative law enforcement in commerce has been carried out in Beijing and other nine cities, and commercial comprehensive law enforcement teams have been built, nine of which were at the city level and 70 were at the county level; the pilot project for the construction of commercial credit system has been done in Jiangsu and other seven provinces or cities. The pilot project for parallel import of automobiles at pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian has been promoted, and the quantity of automobiles via parallel import in early eight months has reached to 31.1 thousand.

4) Focusing on the network construction of domestic trading circulation facilities to perfect commercial outlets in communities, encourage the development of joint distribution and overcome difficulty - "Last one kilometer" in urban logistics. Pilot joint distribution project has been carried out in Chengdu and other 21 cities where built the three-level distribution network including allocation center, distribution center and terminal outlets. And we have supported the construction of 20 non-profit wholesale markets for agricultural products in 28 provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the Central Government, and over 300 cross-regional cold-chain logistics facilities for agricultural products, and improved the agricultural products circulation systems.

5) Accelerating the development of life services to implement the plan for transformation development of eight kinds of residents' life services including housekeeping and accommodation, and promote a system for residents' life services focused on families, based on communities, supported by urban areas and supplemented by rural areas. In Shandong and other seven provinces, pilot project for pension service industry in a market-based way has been carried out, and new methods for building a pension service system have been explored. In Hangzhou and other two cities, the pilot project of "optimizing the environment to promote the transformation development of catering industry" has been carried out.

6) Regulating and standardizing the market order. Provisions and methods hindering the unified domestic market have been cleared out, and the regional blockade has been restrained; enterprises that are suspected of monopolizing the market have been punished selflessly; therefore, lots of major cases have been treated according to law. The exchange and share platform for commercial credit information built has collected more than 1.57 million enterprise information and linked with the national credit information platform. The demonstration of building traceability system for important products has been done, by which 58 cities can build the traceability system for meat and vegetables and 18 provinces where larger-scale manufacturers and dealers of traditional Chinese medicine are located can build the traceability system for traditional Chinese medicine, and eight enterprises can build the traceability system for liquor. More than 150 special actions cracking-down infringements and counterfeits have been carried out, which punished over 1 million illegal criminal cases.

The stable promotion of the construction of modernization and legalization business environment for domestic trading circulation has an obvious effect on the stable growth of domestic residents' consumption. In the first eight months this year, the total retail sales increased by 10.3% year on year; the contribution rate of consumption in the first half year taken in the economic growth reached to 73.4%, growing by 12.5% compared with that in 2015, and the basic effect of consumption on stimulating the economic growth has been strengthened.

3. Recently, the Ministry of Commerce has issued several industrial standards for domestic trade involving logistics. Which positive achievements have been gained by the Ministry of Commerce in terms of promoting logistics standardization in recent years?

A: Recently, we have issued the Operating Management Practice for Pallet Pooling System and other six industrial standards for logistics to further improve the standard system for commercial logistics. In the past two years, we have put forth effort to implement special action on commercial logistics standardization, mobilize the motivation of local governments to carry out the action, and stimulate the initiative of relevant associations to promote the standardization. Through the typical guidance, pilot demonstration, vertical linkage, simultaneous-taking measures and multilateral cooperation, we have gains three positive achievements.

Firstly, we have innovated some experience and patterns that are approved and reproducible. Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regions have formed an upsurge to implement those industrial standards via the cities alliance and enterprises cooperation for joint promotion of logistics standardization. For example, Shanghai Municipality has taken the lead in establish a "pallet circulating utilization alliance in Yangtze River Economic Zone" to promote the logistics standardization, in which 33 logistics associations in 9 provinces or municipalities directly under the Central Government along the river signed the initial written proposal; Nanjing, Wuhu and other six cities have established the "logistics standardization alliance in metropolitan area surrounding Nanjing City" to promote the level of regional logistics standardization via project mobilization; Beijing Chaoyang Wholesale Commerce Company Limited has carried out a unitization pattern for entire-pallet goods order and delivery by cooperating with Jingkelong, Wu-mart and other downstream customers, which optimized the commercial procedures; Shanghai Qingmei Green Food Company, Shanghai City Shop Company and other enterprises have increased effectiveness and decreased costs and goods damage by implementing a distribution pattern, by which goods are delivered directly from the field to vegetables shops without any resale process, and the whole course of the delivery pattern is traceable.

Secondly, we have raised the awareness of many enterprisers to adopt those industrial standards. Many enterprises including the national key enterprises and other local pilot enterprises for promotion of commercial logistics standardization, have combined the standardization with brand image promotion and core competence to improve the standardization level in all directions. For examples, Sinotrans, China Resources Vanguard, Suning, Jingdong , Nestle and other enterprise have actively carried out the palletized transport; CM Loscam, Chep, Tianxiadabai, Jituowang and other enterprise have actively promoted the pallet circulating utilization system to accelerate the development of unitized logistics, which effectively improved the logistics efficiency and reduced the logistics costs.

Thirdly, we have gained a good economic and social benefit. According to the third-party organization, by carrying out the special action on commercial logistics standardization, in key enterprises, the efficiency of goods loading and unloading has increased by more than three times; the damage rate of goods has reduced by 20%-70%, and the comprehensive logistics cost has reduced by 10% on average. In pilot cities, the amount of standard pallet leased has gained a year-on-year growth rate of 97.18%, and the average efficiency of integrated logistics went up by 3.8%. The amount of pallet reduced in 2015 was measured to be 9.6 million pieces, which means that 1.6 million trees may be saved from the felling and 181 thousand tons of emission of carbon dioxide may be reduced.

4. Can you analyze reasons for substantial increase of the utilization of foreign capital in high-tech. services, such as information technology service, digital content and its relevant services, research, development and design, commercialization of research outputs at the background of consecutive growth of total foreign capital invested in China from January to August this year?

A: From January to August this year, the amount of foreign capital used for high-tech. service industry in China was RMB 67.1 billion with a year-on-year growth rate of 98.2%. Amounts used in the information technology service, digital content and its relevant services, research, development and design, and commercialization of research outputs were respectively RMB 29.63 billion, RMB 8.98 billion, RMB 16.99 billion and RMB 9.94 billion, respectively going up by 332.7%, 46.7%, 40.5% and 39.7% on a year-on-year basis. Foreign capital invested in these services accounted for 97.7% of that used in the high-tech. service industry.

There are three reasons for fast growth in foreign capital invested in the high-tech. service industry:

1) The great market demand and encouragement on high-tech. service industry by the State have stimulated the investment enthusiasm of foreign investors. On the one hand, national economy industries have an increasing demand for high-tech. services, the supporting function of technological innovation on economic development has become obvious, and the high-tech. service industry has presented a good development foreground and tendency, on the other hand, during the 12th Five-Year Plan, the State Council has issued the Decision on Accelerating the Cultivation and Development of Strategic Emerging Industries, the Opinions on Several Policy Measures for Vigorously Promotion of Public Entrepreneurship and Mass Innovation, the Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Service Industry, and the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of High-tech. Service Industry to create a good external environment for the foreign investment in the high-tech. service industry.

2) The close relation with the fast growth in foreign capital invested in the service industry in China. In recent years, as the continuous expansion of the scale of Chinese economy and the quickening pace in the adjustment of economic structure and the expansion of the service industry, more and more foreign investors find the existing or potential market opportunity in the development of China's service industry; therefore, foreign capital invested in the service industry has continued a quicker growth situation. In 2015, foreign capital used in the service industry in China was RMB 527.74 billion, accounting for 67.5% of the total foreign capital invested in China. From January to August this year, the foreign capital used in the service industry was RMB 387.8 billion with a year-on-year growth rate of 10%, and accounted for 70.7% of the total foreign capital invested in China.

3) There are many newly-build or capital-increased projects in the high-tech. service industry. From January to August this year, among newly-build or capital-increased foreign investment enterprises whose total investment amounts were more than RMB 100 million, 66 enterprises mainly work on computer software system service, application software service, scientific research and development, technology promotion, professional technical service and other operating activities in the high-tech. service industry.

5. Certain Japanese media reported that three organizations in Japanese economic circle had made suggestions on improving the operating environment in China when they visited China; meanwhile, they asked for defining the applicable standard for the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China so that the acquisition of Chinese enterprises by foreign enterprises would not be hindered. How will the Ministry of Commerce respond to these requirements?

A: On September 22, Gao Yan, the vice-minister of the Ministry of Commerce met with the delegation from Japanese economic circle and exchanged opinions with the delegation in terms of deepening the Sino-Japanese trade relation, and had a communication surrounding the cooperation in the Olympic economy, e-commerce, logistics circulation, health medical treatment, improvement of business environment, development of the third-party market and other wide fields. The symposium went on with a friendly atmosphere, and was practical and positive. Members of the delegation gave a good appraisal on the active role played by the Ministry of Commerce in order to promoting the Sino-Japanese economic and trade cooperation, and expressed that China was a friendly neighbor and irreplaceable partner of Japan, and China's business environment had been improved obviously because China, in recent years, had called for simplifying administrative procedures and delegating powers to lower levels, and severely punished IPR infringement act. Japanese side also made suggestions on further improvement of business environment. Chinese side introduced detailed policies and measures for continuous expansion of open strategy, and made response to those suggestions with aspects of further strengthening the Sino-Japanese economic and trade cooperation, improving the investment environment and providing better services to foreign investment enterprises. We are thankful that domestic and overseas media friends pay attention to this visit in China and the Sino-Japanese economic and trade cooperation. Also, we hope that you can report this visit in an objective and responsible way so as to create a good atmosphere in strengthening the economic cooperation between China and Japan.

In terms of issues on merger and acquisition by Japanese enterprises of Chinese enterprises and implementation of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China, I have to reaffirm that policies for welcoming and attracting foreign investment of China have not changed, and we will treat concentration of undertakings equally without discrimination in the course of anti-monopoly investigation and fairly treat different market subjects, and adopt the same standard thereon, regardless of the form, scale, registration place of the enterprise. There will be no issue on posing obstacles to the merger and acquisition of Chinese enterprises by overseas ones.

6. Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has made the appellate judgment as to the anti-monopoly case involving vitamin C manufactured by Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., in which it repealed the first-instance judgment, send the case back to the court of first trial and required to reject the prosecution of the plaintiff and ordered that the plaintiff may not lodge a lawsuit with the same cause again. What's your opinion on the case?
A: We have noticed the said judgment made on September 20 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. This case means that Chinese company won the case in the US Federal Court. That's good news, and we are glad.

The case involves export management system of "signature and seal upon pre-checking" for Vitamin C implemented in China before, Chinese enterprise involved in the case has completely conform to Chinese laws and regulations at that time, and the Ministry of Commerce has sent a letter "Amicus Curiae" to the US court involved in the case. And the court adopted the international doctrine of comity at the second trial, and showed its respect to the explanation made by the Ministry of Commerce on the export management system.

We appreciate that Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and its parent company, North China Pharmaceutical Group Corporation dare to insist the appeal depending on the legal weapon to maintain their legal rights and interests, and will still support Chinese law-abiding enterprises to confirmedly maintain their legal rights and interests via legal means.

7. In August this year, the EU continuously repealed the price undertaking qualification of eight PV enterprises in China, which even resulted that 16 Chinese PV enterprises had to quit or had been cancelled the qualification at present. However, in the first half of this year, the amount of photovoltaic products export to the Europe has dipped by 30%. What's the Ministry of Commerce's opinion on these issues?

A: This question actually involves issues in two aspects: 1) in the course of carrying out China–European PV price undertaking, partial enterprises' qualification thereof was cancelled; 2) amount of PV products export to the Europe has reduced. They have certain relevancy, the cancellation of partial enterprises' qualification for price undertaking may objectively affect the export under the standard for price undertaking; however, it's not the basic reason why the amount of our PV products export to the Europe reduces.

As for the first issue mentioned above, From June 2015 to August 2016, the European Commission has cancelled the qualification for price undertaking of 16 Chinese PV enterprises in total at seven times. The 16 enterprises can be divided into two categories: Category 1: enterprises that quit the qualification voluntarily, and there are four enterprises therein; Category 2: enterprises which qualifications are cancelled because they are suspected of being involved in violating the price undertaking, and there are 12 enterprises therein.

As for the issue that the qualifications for price undertaking of partial enterprises have been cancelled, we need to hold an objective view. Firstly, we should know that most enterprises still possess the qualification for price undertaking. In the past few years, China and the Europe have been insisting the cooperation and jointly trying to work hard on such cooperation, which paved a flat road for smooth implementation of price undertaking agreement. Most Chinese PV enterprises observe the agreement and implement it well. Except for 16 enterprises which qualifications are cancelled, at present, there are 105 enterprises listed in the scope of price undertaking. Secondly, as for enterprises that quit the qualification voluntarily, they just want seek favorable market opportunities and space for themselves in order to get rid of restriction from clauses under the price undertaking agreement. Thirdly, partial enterprises actually violated the agreement. Keeping promises is a basic standpoint consistently insisted by Chinese side which will punish these enterprises violating the agreement in accordance with the agreement without any toleration and appeasement. Fourthly, at present, the execution of price undertaking also exists some problems, which mainly embody that the minimum price under the price undertaking agreement has severely strayed from the market price, and new situation that the business mode cannot be completed forecasted at the time of negotiating and signing the agreement appears. Therefore, we hope that the European side may properly adjust the minimum price according to current market situation, and provide conditions for continuous and stable execution of the price undertaking in a proper way. We'd like to keep a close cooperation with the European side, well solve any issued occurred in the course of executing the price undertaking via a friendly negotiation.

As for issues that the amount of Chinese PV products export to the Europe reduces. Restrictive measures for the EU trade has certain influence on the export of PV products from China; however, the main reason for reduction of the export amount is that member countries in the EU have phased out the incentive policy for PV application, leading a severe contraction of the market; thus, the China's relevant export amount and the export price reduce. The installed capacity of PV in EU market has reduced from the peak value of 22.4 GW in 2011 to 8GW in 2015. In 2015, under the standard for price undertaking, the amount of Chinese PV products export to the Europe was 3.46GW, which value amounted to EUR 1.785 billion.
On the whole, the pattern of current global PV market has changed significantly, China has become the largest PV market in the world, and as the diversity of Asia-pacific market tends to be stronger, the importance of the shrinking EU market in the global market declines. If the EU still adopts restrictive measures, the market shrink will be worse and bad for EU climate and the long-term interests of energies in the EU. Therefore, we hope that the EU can stop measures for counter-dumping and countervailing completely as soon as possible and get its PV market back to the normal status to realize real double-win.

8. On October 13, 2016, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will convoke the sixth economic and trade ministers' meeting in India; what are the highlights of the meeting? Is there any expected result? Whether the Chinese side propose the negotiation issue on free trade agreement or not?

A: Since the establishment of the economic and trade ministers' meeting mechanism of BRICS in 2011 upon the proposal of China, the meeting has been convoked for five times, and consecutively adopted the Cooperation Framework of Trade and Investment in BRICS, the Strategies for Economic Partnership of BRICS and other cooperative planning, the economic and trade cooperation has step in the right direction, and the cooperation trend will be better and better.

On October 13, 2016, the sixth economic and trade ministers' meeting of BRICS will be held in New Delhi, India, in which the global economic development situation and its influence of trade and investment in BRICS, and practical cooperation in relevant economic and trade field will be discussed as key points. Depending on joint effort of BRICS, this meeting is likely to realize cooperation in terms of intellectual property, non-tariff measures, trade promotion, service trade, medium-sized and small enterprises, and single window. In addition, during this meeting, BRICS will hold its first trade fair. At present, we are actively negotiating with other parties, and will determine relevant results at the meeting to prepare for the eighth meeting of leaders of BRICS held in Goa from October 15 to October 16 in aspects of economy and trade.

In the process of preparing for this meeting, Chinese side has not proposed any issue on free trade agreement negotiation with other member countries in BRICS; however, there indeed are many experts in academic and industrial circles suggesting to do so. We think, the commercial free trade zone established among BRICS is a significant form for BRICS carrying out practical cooperation. In the long term, by opening market to that of the other member country, eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers, actively exerting the comparative advantage and further promoting the level of trade and investment liberalization, BRICS may gain complementary advantages and double-win, which is good for the promotion of mutual development, and effectively accelerates the world-wide south to south cooperation.

9. As SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) will convoke the 15th economic and trade ministers' meeting at Kyrgyzstan in mid-October, which important issues will be proposed at this meeting?

A: This year is the 15th anniversary of SCO, and regional economic cooperation is facing new situation and opportunity. During this meeting, each party will implement achievements in economic and trade determined at Tashkent head of state summit held in June as key points, prepare for economic and trade matters involving the prime ministers' meeting that will be held in November, and study on policy measures for the development of regional economic cooperation during the new period. At the meeting, the List of Measures of SCO for Further Promotion of Projects Cooperation from 2017 to 2021 will be discussed and adopted as a key point, and submitted to SCO prime ministers' meeting in November for adoption upon deliberation. The list will cover ten measures and items in ten fields, including trade and investment, finance, customs, agriculture, science and technology, information and telecommunications, environment protection, and transportation infrastructure. This is the "Five-Year Plan" for regional economic cooperation of SCO, which will guide a sustainable development on regional economic cooperation in five years and in various fields. In addition, the Articles of SCO Special Working Group for Trade Facilitation and the Working Program of SCO on E-Commerce Business Alliance will be adopted. China-Kyrgyzstan inter-governmental economic and trade cooperation committee will convoke the 12th meeting, of which issues will include trade, investment, economic technology and financial cooperation, cooperation under multilateral framework, local cooperation, etc.

The above contents are answers to relevant questions concerned by the media. Taking this opportunity, I'd like to report some upcoming events: on the morning of October 11, the Fifth ministerial meeting of economic and trade cooperation forum between China and Portuguese-speaking countries will be convoked in Macao; thank you for the attention of all media friends.

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)