On The Legal Regulation Of The Trade Monopoly Of Central Enterprises

The trade monopoly of China’s central enterprises obtains the common characteristics oftrade monopoly but has its uniqueness. The trade monopoly of central enterprises is anadministrative monopoly with a nature of natural monopoly or state monopoly.Administrative monopoly is its essential feature and where its main drawbacks lie in. Thetrade monopoly of central enterprises is growing and falls into a structural trend with the stateadvancing and the private retreating. There is apparent involvement of the government’sadministrative powers, while the management of central enterprises and governmentdepartments are frequently exchanging positions. The actual performance of centralenterprises is poor and the created profit is chiefly distributed internally. Simultaneously, thetrade monopoly of central enterprises is bringing serious harms to the society and the marketcompetition and hence hindering the technology advance and equipment renewal. It is alsodistorting the price and the profit distributive mechanism. In recent years, pushing reforms forcentral enterprises has become important issues to government and academic researches. Thestate and government have also carried out bold explorations and practices on the reforms ofthe trade monopoly of central enterprises in a variety of ways. However, this thesis intends toresolve the problem of how to carry out the most reasonable and effective regulations in lightof law in the trade monopoly of central enterprises.In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, this thesis consists of four parts.The first part is “overview of the trade monopoly of central enterprises”. Firstly, the firstsection clarifies the definition of the trade monopoly of central enterprises and analyzes itsbasic characteristics and nature through its connotation of the definition. It points out that thetrade monopoly of central enterprises is an administrative monopoly with the nature of naturalmonopoly or state monopoly emerging from governmental power to solve public problems.The second section discusses the reason that despite the fact that the state is strengtheninglaw-formulating and law-implementing about anti-monopoly, it still tolerates the existence ofthe trade monopoly of central enterprises. The thesis demonstrates the legitimacy of the trademonopoly of central enterprises in the specific periods of state’s social development in termsof economics, law and national policy. On the basis of answering "what the trade monopolyof central enterprises is" and "why the trade monopoly of central enterprises exists", the thirdsection distinguishes and analyzes the concepts which are related to the trade monopoly of central enterprises.The second part is "analysis of the necessity and feasibility of the legal regulation to thetrade monopoly of central enterprises." This part consists of two sections. The necessity ofregulation is first analyzed. It illustrates the necessity of regulation by demonstrating theparticularities, the present performance and social harms of the trade monopoly of centralenterprises. The second section analyzes the feasibility of the regulation from the perspectivesof theory, practice and reality. The theoretical feasibility is demonstrated by illustrating thechanges and development of natural monopoly theory, the application of essential facilitydoctrine and theory of needed state intervention. The respective performance of practicalfeasibility and realistic feasibility is reflected as possibility of other market playersparticipating in the competition, and the necessity to carry out the regulations to the trademonopoly of central enterprises in the critical moment of social economic development.The third part is "the value proposition of legal regulation of the trade monopoly ofcentral enterprises." This part is to demonstrate the legitimacy of applying legal regulations tothe trade monopoly of central enterprises from the perspective of the value. It is essentially anexpectation of values of the benefit-related groups to regulate the monopolistic centralenterprises from legal aspects. In terms of value level, to have necessary limit and control tothe trade monopoly of the central enterprises, the initial step should be confirming the valueof economic freedom and economic equality as a prerequisite of market-operating, and valueof economic security value and economic efficiency must be carried out in the process ofmarket-operating so as to achieve value of sustainable development in the long-termdevelopment of market-operating.The fourth part is "the specific measures of legal regulation to the trade monopoly ofcentral enterprises." This part is also the countermeasure response of this thesis to its topic. Ithas become a crucial point and breakthrough to carry out legal regulation to the trademonopoly of central enterprises during the current deepening economic restructuring.Although this kind of monopoly has all sorts of drawbacks, we can not say it has completelylost its function and the existent rationality. Therefore, as for the regulation order andregulation content of the trade monopoly of central enterprises, we should hold a cautiousattitude and dialectically look at the acts of the trade monopoly of central enterprises. As someof the monopoly of trade or industry may exist in a longer period of time, certain degree ofcontrol and intervention is still necessary. In this part, aiming at the particularities, features and harms of the trade monopoly of central enterprises, some specific legal regulationmeasures for central enterprises were proposed, mainly including: introducing competitionand moderately relaxing the market access system of some monopoly trades; cleaning upadministrative regulations, eliminating monopolistic barriers and standardizing governmentalbehaviors; setting up and improve supervising system of state-owned capital andstandardizing behaviors of central enterprises; adjusting pricing system and improving thestandards of industrial product and service and achieving equitable benefit-sharing; setting upand improving legal system for upgrading technology and renewing equipment; establishingand improving legal system against relational monopoly; improving legal system forconsumer-rights protection. Among the above-mentioned specific measures proposed by theauthor, the introduction of competition and relaxation of market access is a breakthrough ofthe regulation and should be placed in the primary position of the legal regulation on the trademonopoly of central enterprises.The conclusion gives a brief summary of the thesis. The current trade monopoly ofcentral enterprises has a noble and fatal conceit. Legal regulation on the trade monopoly ofcentral enterprises requires tremendous support from systemic reforms and multilateral effortsand supports, and should safeguard the impartiality and policy of the law-making, flexibilityand effectiveness of the law-implementing and timeliness and visibility of the effect of law. Inany case, such regulation means that the monopoly caused by highly interventionaladministrative power in the past will be gradually transformed into a formation of anothersystem arrangement with effective competition caused by less interventional administrativepower.