The State Administration for Market Regulation will continue treating foreign and domestic companies equally, as it is on the way to completing a sweeping institutional reform. Wu Zhenguo, Director of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the Administration said all companies are equal in the enforcement of China’s anti-monopoly law, and there is no selective practice targeting foreign-funded or overseas enterprises. The State Administration for Market Regulation was established earlier this year to unify China’s anti-monopoly functions, previously scattered in three ministries – the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Around 41% of antitrust cases investigated by the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce involved state-owned enterprises, with foreign-funded ones only accounting for about 10.7%, Wu said.

The authority will step up the push to perfect regulatory mechanisms as part of China’s broader efforts to create a level playing field for all companies and to build an open and modern market system. Gan Lin, Vice Director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said the institutional reform has already been completed in the central level of the administration, and the overhaul of its local branches will be done by the end of December. The agency is unifying law enforcement standards and setting up an anti-monopoly database as well as an expert consulting system to better regulate the market. China is also working to amend its anti-monopoly law, which was enacted 10 years ago. The amendment effort aims to make the law more adaptive to rapidly changing social and economic environments, Gan added. “We have already finished a draft version of the amendment, but it will take some time to get it through,” she said.

In the past 10 years, China has handled 165 monopoly agreement cases, and 55 cases involving companies abusing their market dominance position. The total penalty exceeded CNY11 billion, the China Daily reports.