The Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM) announced on 31 May 2019 that the Chinese government will introduce an “Unreliable Entity List” regime, under which foreign entities or individuals that boycott or cut off supplies to Chinese companies for non-commercial purposes and causing serious damages to Chinese companies would be listed as “Unreliable Entities”. The specific rules, including the list itself and the restrictive measures applicable to the listed entities, will be separately released in the near future. This new regime may be used by China as a countermeasure against export control measures of foreign governments targeting specific Chinese companies.
The Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”) of the People’s Republic of China (“China”) published the draft Export Control Law (“ECL”) for public comments via a circular on 16 June 2017. If enacted, the ECL will be the first set of comprehensive and unified export control legislation in China, which is aimed at upgrading the country’s existing regime consisting of various administrative regulations and rules. The ECL is still in the draft form and no further update has been announced since its publication last year, but it is widely expected to be introduced in the National People’s Congress within 2018.