At a national conference in Beijing, Zhang said that the judicial administrative departments should help legal service providers improve their service so as to back China's full-scale co-operation and competition in the international arena next year.

The move is a result of the nation's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Zhang also encouraged lawyers to provide consultations to Chinese enterprises with overseas clients.

"China's WTO accession will have a strong impact on our concept and system of judicial administration," Zhang said.

China has committed itself to removing geographic and quantitative restrictions on the branches of overseas law firms on the mainland within one year.

Currently, overseas law firms can only set up one branch office in one of 15 mainland cities on a list approved by the Ministry of Justice. Most of the 131 overseas law firms have their mainland offices clustered in Beijing and Shanghai.

The State Council last week passed, in principle, a regulation governing the offices of overseas law firms in China. The regulation is the first of its kind since overseas law firms started to swarm the Chinese market in the early 1990s.

Although the WTO move will present more business opportunities, not everything is so rosy for China's legal service industry, which has blossomed only in the last two decades.

Zhang conceded that there is a shortage of high-calibre domestic lawyers proficient in economics, science and technology, foreign languages and WTO rules.

He also said small domestic law firms of a lower degree and specialization than overseas firms may lag behind in the competition.

The judicial administrative departments in China will better train legal professionals so as to meet these challenges, Zhang said.

(China Daily December 24, 2001)