Experts have told listed companies to attach more significance to public relations (PR) so as to extinguish problems and, more importantly, prevent potential trouble.

"How well listed companies treat PR directly affects the interests of shareholders and the development of the national economy subsequently," said Zhu Daren, vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Not all listed companies come to realize the value of PR.

If they are not alert enough to the issue even after the country's entry into the World Trade Organization, they will do harm not only to themselves but to society, Zhu said.

PR is not a new thing in the city since the Shanghai Public Relations Association, the first of its kind in the country, was set up in the 1980s.

This section grows rapidly and in 2000, PR actualized nearly 1.5 billion yuan (US$181 million), with a yearly increase of 50 per cent.

"Compared with the PR industry abroad, our PR section is still very young, not only in terms of business scale but also social recognition," said Li Hong, general manager of Ogilvy Public Relations, one of the leading PR companies world-wide.

The company has been doing PR work for many big names such as Ma'anshan Steel and Tianjin Zhongxin Pharmacy to get listed.

In 2000, the whole country actualized a little over $8 billion of business volume, but over the same period, the United States achieved $250 billion, Li said.

According to Zhang Zujian, a professor at Shanghai University, PR, to most people, in enterprises and government, used to mean to make some connections, most of the time via humble ways with authoritative figures.

Indeed, people condemn PR, and recognize it as dirty tricks rather than intelligent work.

Some universities have removed the major from the curriculum because PR graduates found it hard to land a job.

"It is a subject of science and will generate a very profitable industry," Zhang said.

"People's numbness towards PR reflects the opening of the market.

" It will become clearer after WTO entry that the more open the market becomes, the more enterprises will become limited in terms of space and time to react to market changes - decisive for the business to survive or die.

To listed companies which are obliged to report regularly their actual operations and profit to the public, PR is not only a weapon to deal with crisis.

"Even during daily operations, PR plays its role as a management factor that should never be neglected, unlike some companies which throw PR away once they go listed," Li said.

Strategy is not so much organizing a team researching the situation of the company itself, but the market as a whole, so as to offer suggestions on development goals for the company.

Experts work out specific procedures to organize news briefings and media interviews, so as to attract more capital and interest, and increase the value of stock.

Li pointed out that the process is very serious, in particular because a great number of listed companies are merely a combination of different sectors rather than a thorough readjustment.

The failure of companies results more from internal factors than from outside impact.

Daily PR can clean up the mechanism orders and smooth problems towards success.

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