China's Ministry of Finance said it is scrapping certain rules that foreign companies say favored domestic products for government procurement, a significant step toward easing concerns that global companies would be excluded from billions of dollars in contracts.

　　中国财政部说，将废除外资公司认为在政府采购中有利于中国本国产品的某些规定。国外企业无缘数百亿美元合同的担心，由此得到很大程度的缓解。

　　As part of a broader government initiative to foster "indigenous innovation," the Finance Ministry had issued a series of regulations in the past several years requiring products bought by the government to have Chinese intellectual property. Those rules and related ones from other ministries triggered a backlash among foreign companies and became one of the biggest sources of trade friction with the U.S.

　　根据一个培育“自主创新”的政府行动计划，财政部曾在过去几年发布一系列规定，要求政府采购的产品必须具有中国的知识产权。这些规定以及其他部委发布的相关规定引起外企强烈反弹，并成为中美贸易摩擦的最重要诱发因素之一。

　　In a brief statement posted on its website, the Finance Ministry said that "after research," it had decided from July 1 to "stop enforcing" three regulations related to the procurement policy. It named the rules─to do with budget, screening and contract management─but didn't otherwise elaborate.

　　财政部在其网站发表简短声明说，“经研究”，它已决定从7月1日起“停止执行”有关采购政策的三项规定。财政部列出了这些规定的名称，分别涉及预算、评审和合同管理。

　　In January, Chinese President Hu Jintao, on a state visit to the U.S., agreed to delink Beijing's innovation policies from its government-procurement preferences and pledged that China wouldn't discriminate against products from foreign suppliers. But executives and officials have been waiting for formal statements from China's central government implementing that policy and telling other arms of government to comply.

　　国家主席胡锦涛今年1月份对美国进行国事访问时，同意将北京的创新政策与其政府采购偏好脱钩，并承诺中国不会歧视来自国外供应商的产品。但美国的企业高管和政府官员一直在等待中国中央政府发表实施这一政策的正式声明并要求其他政府部门遵守。

　　In a statement, U.S.-China Business Council President John Frisbie said the Finance Ministry notice is "an important development given that companies encounter indigenous-innovation policies and barriers to sales at multiple" government levels in China. "Though the measures represent only a portion of the full list of regulations that tie indigenous innovation and government procurement, the elimination of these measures is an important step toward fulfilling pledges made by" Chinese leaders, including Mr. Hu, he said.

　　美中贸易全国委员会(U.S.-China Business Council)会长傅强恩(John Frisbie)说，考虑到企业在中国各级政府遭遇自主创新政策，和销售产品的障碍，财政部的公告是“一个重要进展”。他说，虽然这些被废除的措施只代表将自主创新与政府采购挂钩的所有规定的一部分，但其废除是朝着兑现胡锦涛等中国领导人所做承诺迈出的重要一步。

　　In addition to the Finance Ministry's procurement regulations, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology also issued rules that established an accreditation system under the banner of "Indigenous Innovation" through which companies would have to submit their products in order to be considered for government procurement. The status of those other rules isn't clear. None of the three ministries responded to requests for comment Thursday.

　　除中国财政部的采购规定外，国家发改委和科技部也曾发布过相关规定，以“自主创新”为名建立了一套认证系统，企业为在政府采购项目中成为被考虑对象，只能将自己的产品通过这套系统提交上去。其它规定的情况现在并不清楚。这三大部委周四均没有回应置评要求。

　　Executives warned that the significance of this week's change will depend on implementation. Ted Dean, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the announcement was "a very important step" in delinking government procurement from indigenous innovation. But it's unclear whether "other parts of the indigenous-innovation regulatory regime," including the other two ministries involved in these regulations, will follow suit, he said. "We need to watch and see" how it is put into practice at the provincial and city levels, he added.

　　公司高管提醒说，本周的更改声明是否具有重要意义，将取决于它能否得到有效执行。中国美国商会(American Chamber of Commerce in China)主席狄安华(Ted Dean)说，声明在政府采购与自主创新的脱钩方面迈出了很重要的一步。但他说，目前还不清楚自主创新监管体制的其它组成部分(包括这些规定涉及的其它两个部委)是否也会这么做。他还说，我们应关注这则声明如何在省市层面得到落实。

　　China's government-procurement rules have been obscure both in their terms and in their scope, leaving unclear, for example, whether they apply to the purchases by China's enormous state-owned companies, and how authorities would define domestic intellectual property when many technology products are developed across several different countries.

　　中国的政府采购规定无论是在条款描述还是应用范围方面都十分隐晦。例如，人们在读过之后，仍无法确定这些规定是否适用于中国大型国企的采购，以及如果很多科技产品经由几个不同国家研发而成，有关当局将如何界定国内的知识产权等。

　　While central government authorities have repeatedly said that foreign companies would be included in considerations for accreditation and treated equally to Chinese companies, foreign companies complained that some local governments were excluding them from procurement catalogs anyway. Industry groups representing most of the world's major technology companies have therefore continued to press the central government to reconsider the indigenous-innovation procurement policies, saying the rules were onerous and discriminatory and violate Beijing's commitments to resist protectionism.

　　虽然中央政府有关部门者一再说，外国企业将被纳入产品认证的考虑范围且将与中国企业得到同等待遇，但外企却抱怨说，即使如此，有些地方政府还是把它们排除在采购目录之外。代表全球大多数主要技术企业利益的行业组织因此继续给中国政府施压，要求它重新考虑自主创新的采购政策。这些组织说，采购政策的相关规定十分繁琐，带有一定的歧视性，不符合北京抵制保护主义的承诺。

　　China is a World Trade Organization member, but it hasn't signed on to the WTO's voluntary Agreement on Government Procurement that bars discrimination against foreign companies bidding on government projects.

　　中国是世界贸易组织(WTO)成员，但还没有签署该组织自愿性的政府采购协议(Agreement on Government Procurement)。该协议禁止歧视那些竞标政府项目的外国企业。

　　"Ultimately, the best safeguard of a transparent government procurement process would be China's accession to the Government Procurement Agreement," Mr. Dean said. "We urge China to move forward with a robust revised accession offer that can form the basis for negotiations on China's accession."

　　狄安华说，说到底，保障政府采购程序透明化的最佳措施就是让中国签署政府采购协议，我们敦促中国积极行动，拿出一个强有力的经修订的签署提议，这可作为中国签署该协议的谈判基础。