No changes to Labor Contract Law

Xin Chunying, deputy director of the legislative affairs commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said yesterday that China’s controversial Labor Contract Law is not to blame for widespread failures of small and medium-sized exporters in coastal regions, as entrepreneurs have claimed, and will therefore not be revised, the South China Morning Post reported. "[We] will not amend the law because of the economic crisis because there is no connection between the crisis and [the enactment of] the Labor Contract Law," she said. Xin said a recent investigation showed that the law increased business costs by only 2%. Following enaction of the law lsat year, manufacturing hubs in China have been inundated by labor dispute cases. Hong Kong’s exporters have sent representatives to Beijing to lobby for changes to the law or to its enforcement. Some regional governments on the mainland have already relaxed implementation of the law fearing more factory closures. Chen Wei, vice-president of the China Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, dismissed Ms Xin’s 2% figure, saying some of the association’s member firms claimed their costs have risen between 10% and 20%.