China to launch campaign to dismantle market access barriers

China announced Tuesday a campaign to eliminate and rectify market access barriers in the latest effort to promote the development of a unified national market.

According to an official notice, the campaign will target local laws, regulations, administrative documents and other policy papers that contravene national market access requirements, as well as practices by governments at various levels that improperly impose restrictions on market entry.

The government aims to establish long-term mechanisms -- including the collection of clues, verification and rectification of problems, and public notification of typical cases -- to ensure continuous efforts to safeguard fair market access.

The notice was jointly published by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration for Market Regulation.

The campaign marks a significant step in the country's broader moves to foster a first-rate business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized.

The NDRC and other departments have disclosed 115 typical cases over the past years, in which local regulations or practices went against the national market access negative list, effectively removing market obstacles and protecting the rights of business entities.

China has recently unveiled the 2025 version of the market access negative list where the number of items are reduced from 117 in 2022 to 106. ■