U.S. firms welcome business with China
U.S. firms welcome business with China
BEIJING (Reuter): Representatives from the U.S. film and music industries expressed excitement over the prospects of greater market access to China, but for China's film authorities it was business as usual yesterday, a day after the two economic giants averted a trade war.
"We'll see a very, very booming market -- Chinese as well as foreign movies," said Michael Connors, visiting senior vice- president for the Asia-Pacific region of the Washington-based Motion Picture Association.
"Many people are interested in entertainment (with growing) resources to spend," Connors said in a telephone interview. "Business in the past was not good because of rampant piracy. But prospects for business (now) look really good."
After talks which stretched beyond the expiry of a previously set deadline, China bowed on Sunday to U.S. demands to throw open its tightly controlled markets to legitimate imports and to crack down on pirate compact disc, laser disc and CD-ROM plants.
The agreement allows U.S. music, film and computer software companies to create joint ventures with Chinese firms to produce and distribute legitimate copies of their products and to share in the profits.
In return, Washington dropped an action that would have imposed punitive 100 percent tariffs on US$1.08 billion worth of imports from China, which had threatened tit-for-tat sanctions.
China will also create task forces nationwide to combat intellectual property piracy and launch raids in a six-month enforcement period from March 1 to destroy counterfeit products.
"We believe this agreement is a win-win agreement," said, William Warwick, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.
Analysts said the accord would not only help stem millions of dollars in U.S. industry losses to Chinese software pirates, but would also help Beijing attract the investment needed to modernize China's huge economy.
"Not only will there be American films, video, television products, there will be American investment which is important," Connors said.
Officials of the state import monopoly ChinaFilm predicted scant change.
"There won't be too big a change. It will be as usual," a ChinaFilm official said.
"We are still waiting for word from above that the trade war is off then we can proceed with our work," the official said when asked when the U.S. blockbuster film True Lies would be shown at local theaters.
China stalled the import of True Lies in the run-up to the trade war, indefinitely postponing the dubbing of its soundtrack into Chinese.