SHANGHAI: Authorities in China's commercial hub are about to allow workers to invest in local businesses, a move aimed at boosting private investments and creating jobs.

Full-time employees in Shanghai, excluding government officials, government staff and and State-owned enterprises' senior executives, will be allowed to buy into firms, with the exception of foreign-invested companies, based in the city's Pudong New District.

The decision, announced last Wednesday, marks a "significant policy breakthrough," said Shanghai municipal government spokesperson Jiao Yang.

Shanghai's new rules will help boost local private investments, as investment channels will become more diverse, Jiao said.

Shanghai has more than 230,000 private enterprises, more than any other Chinese mainland city, indicate Shanghai Private Enterprises Association's (SPEA) statistics.

While the city's private firms struggled last year to find adequate loans and/or venture capital to finance their expansions, residents' bank deposits grew to 410 billion yuan (US$49.6 billion).

The new policy will also attract more private funding from other provinces and regions, Jiao said.

"Encouraging the development of the private sector is key to helping ease employment," Jiao added.

Shanghai's private firms, of which 70 per cent are in the service sector, contribute nearly 80 per cent of the city's employment, indicate SPEA's statistics.

Shanghai's employment outlook for the rest of the year is "not optimistic," Jiao said.

Shanghai's registered unemployment rate reached 4.85 per cent by the end of last month, indicate the city's statistics.

Meanwhile, the number of graduates from the city's universities increased 31 per cent, to 81,733, from last year.

Twenty-six per cent of those graduates still had not found work by the end of last month, indicate the government's statistics.

Shanghai's government has promised to create at least 200,000 new jobs during the remainder of this year, to keep the city's registered unemployment rate below 5 per cent.

Local economists estimate one job will be created for every 130,000 yuan (US$15,600) invested in a Shanghai-based enterprise.

"Encouraging private investments has become a general trend," said Pan Zhengyan, a financial expert with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"But the new policy will not cause an immediate investment craze."

Shanghai's new policy follows China's decision years ago to ease restrictions on stock purchases by government and Party officials, Pan said.

Some people, he predicted, will choose to quit their jobs to start their own businesses.

"If that happens, private investments will be vitalized," he said.

"It's a positive move, and Shanghai is taking the lead," Pan said.

Sun Jiafeng, a lawyer with the Shanghai Hengtai Law Office, said the policy will help protect individual investors' rights.

Many full-time employees, currently prohibited by government regulations from investing, often use "detours," such as using a retired friend's name, to invest, Sun said.

Numerous legal disputes have arisen, Sun said.

Shanghai's industry and commerce authorities last week also announced plans to simplify investing procedures.

"Investors will not have to apply for approval to invest in a business," Kong Xiangyi, enterprise registration director of Shanghai Industry and Commerce Bureau, said last Wednesday.

"Instead, investors only need to notify the government of their investments, and promise to obey rules."

(Business Weekly 07/08/2003 page5)