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To: Dennis Roth who wrote (9968)	5/11/2000 6:40:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

05/11/2000 Dow Jones News Services (Copyright ¸ 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) By Geoff Winestock Staff Reporter European Union trade negotiator Pascal Lamy said he would press China to allow foreign mobile-phone operators to take stakes of at least 50% in joint ventures, drawing a line in the sand ahead of talks next week on the terms of China's entry into the World Trade Organization. The EU has previously avoided details of its demands in the talks with Beijing, but Mr. Lamy's comments at a news conference Thursday indicate the EU is firming up its negotiating position. Mr. Lamy is due to start a week of talks with Chinese Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng in Beijing on Monday. He said he hoped this would be the final round of talks but he was "realistic" about the chances. The demand on mobile phones would be a major concession for China, which has said it won't go much beyond terms reached in November with the U.S. Mr. Lamy said Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji had told him "forcibly" that it was politically impossible for China to go beyond the U.S. deal. But Mr. Lamy said the mobile-phone issue was one of several that were crucial to the European Union, the last major trading partner to conclude a deal with China. "It is one of the areas where our competitive advantage is quite different from America," he said. The EU demands go beyond the telecom clauses in the U.S. deal, under which China is to allow foreigners to take a stake of only 49% after five years in mobile-phone services. The ownership restriction for mobile phones, and also the long transition time, is a major concern for EU mobile phone makers Nokia Corp. and Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson and for operators like Orange PLC, which are already active in China. "The EU wants the possible share of European joint ventures to increase substantially," Mr. Lamy said, adding that the EU's "real goal is around 50%." In other details of his position, Mr. Lamy said the EU was interested in speeding up transition times built into the U.S. deal for liberalization of China's licensing and foreign ownership requirements in telecoms as well as banking, insurance and automobiles. In banking, EU officials said Mr. Lamy would press for an end to lending restrictions for foreign-owned banks and in insurance, the EU wants an end to geographical restrictions on licenses. The EU also wants greater market access for European goods not covered by the U.S. deal, like gin and fertilizer, and is pressing for liberalization of state trading monopolies in several sectors. (END) DOW JONES NEWS 05-11-00 06:19 PM