China Credit Insight 7: Who is AIC?

AIC should more correctly be referred as SAIC, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (in Chinese: 国家工商行政管理总局). It is the authority in China responsible for advancing legislation concerning the administration of industry and commerce. What is SAIC responsible for?

On a local level, the organization’s responsibilities roughly mimic those of the secretaries of individual states in the United States as a “Market Entity” registration and licensing authority.

In practice, local people refer AIC as the SAIC’s local branch in each province, or a major city, as a Government department with the jurisdiction over the industry and commerce in that region. People tend to use the term “SAIC” or “State AIC” as the national authority.

AIC or SAIC functions in maintaining market order and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of businesses and consumers by carrying out regulations in the fields of enterprise registration, competition, consumer protection, trademark protection and combating economic illegalities. The top three responsibilities of SAIC are:

• Regulate the market through administrative enforcement, draft relevant laws, and make regulations and policies on administration of industry and commerce.
• Carry out and administer registration of enterprises (including foreign-invested enterprises), agricultural cooperatives, entities or individuals engaged in business operation and resident representative offices of foreign companies; and take charge of the investigation and ban on unlicensed business operation according to law.
• Regulate and maintain market order according to law; regulate market transactions and online transactions in goods and services.

The complete mission of SAIC is found in the link below:
http://www.saic.gov.cn/english/aboutus/Mission/

A businessman who wants to setup a new business will have to deal with a local AIC. The registration process starts with the AIC’s approval of the proposed entity name. Nowadays, getting an entity name approved is as difficult as acquiring a new domain name on the internet because most word combinations have been taken.

This Credit Insight is an extract from the book Happy Customers Faster Cash, China Edition and on sale at Amazon.

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