Brussels, 14/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 November, after consultation lasting eight months, the EU, United States and China reached agreement at the WTO with China on control of financial information provided by foreign press agencies in China. The agreement must allow foreign financial information agencies such as Thomson Reuters of Canada and Bloomberg and Dow Jones of the USA to benefit from a new regulatory framework. Under the agreement, a new independent regulator will be set in place on 1 June 2009 as well as measures to ensure information confidentiality. Also, it establishes that foreign agencies may open trading structures in China unimpeded. In September 2006, Beijing had reaffirmed the monopoly held by the official Xinhua agency for the distribution and publication of economic and financial information, a market hitherto dominated by foreign press agencies. Not only did the foreign press agencies operating in China have to pass through a branch of Xinhua, but the Chinese agency had also set in place a financial information service in direct competition with foreign financial information providers. The United States and the EU each filed a complaint with the WTO in March, accusing China of allowing Xinhua to be both regulator and competitor, thus benefiting from a monopoly situation (EUROPE 9614). (E.H./transl.jl)