Clarence Kwan (Deloitte & Touche), chair of USCIB's China Subcommittee, led a two-week USCIB mission to China in November, accompanied by his colleague Wendy Cai and Kris Knutsen, USCIB’s manager of China policy. (Mr. Kwan and Mr. Knutsen are pictured at right.)

The group discussed trade and investment issues with a broad cross-section of USCIB members operating in China, meeting a total of 19 member companies in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as U.S. officials tasked with monitoring China's WTO compliance.

The information gleaned from the mission, as well as the results of USCIB’s survey on China’s investment conditions past year, will form the basis of a report we plan to submit this spring to OECD and Chinese officials, suggesting future priorities for their expanding cooperation program.

An interim report, with observations from the USCIB mission and a work program to address issues raised by members in China, is available in the Members Only area of USCIB’s website.

To obtain your Members Only user name and password, contact USCIB Member Services at 212-703-5049 or
membership@uscib.org.

Chinese Banks Endorse ICC Trade Rules – Paris, 8 January 2004, Chinese banks widely accepted ICC trade rules, a top official of the Bank of China asserted in an interview to be published in the quarterly newsletter Documentary Credits Insight, due out on 25 January. Zhang Yanling, who is the new Vice-Chair of the ICC Banking Commission, is Executive Vice President as well as Managing Director and Chief Legal Advisor of the Bank of China. She said ICC rules governing documentary credits (UCP 500), and the Uniform Rules for Collections, were the most important guidelines for Chinese banks in trade settlement practice. But the Chinese banking official added: "Great changes in world trade and the banking sector and world trade have taken place in the past 10 years. ICC rules should keep pace with the times." Zhang Yanling said she was confident that the new text for the UCP (Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits) would quickly be adopted by Chinese bankers and traders, and would become the guideline for all letter of credit practitioners, just as the current UCP 500 has been.