Brussels, 23/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - While there is increasing criticism of Chinese protectionism against foreign investment (EUROPE 10186), China has submitted a new proposal for membership in the WTO's agreement on government procurement, its initial 2007 offer being deemed insufficient by its trading partners. Since last week, the EU and the United States have been studying a new membership proposal from China, where public procurement was worth over $100 billion in contracts in 2009. Although the content of the offer is confidential, WTO sources cited by the French daily, Les Echos, note “significant improvements” compared to the initial offer. In 2007, China called for transitional periods of up to 15 years for opening up certain public procurement markets. Now, it is apparently only asking for a 5-year adjustment period. China is also said to have lengthened the list of institutions and administrations that can open up their public procurement market to foreigners, and reduced certain financial ceilings, thus triggering automatic opening for all companies to the major construction markets. Nonetheless, Beijing is still said to refuse to include in the agreement administrations dependent on local governments or state-owned companies responsible for a large part of tenders. (E.H./transl.jl)