China makes strides in promoting construction of intl commercial arbitration centers

China has made solid progress in its pilot program for the construction of international commercial arbitration centers.

In 2023, the eight arbitration institutions in the pilot regions for the construction of international commercial arbitration centers handled 79,000 cases involving a total of 600 billion yuan ($82.89 billion). Among them, 2,251 foreign-related cases were concluded, accounting for 72 percent of the total foreign-related cases nationwide, according to a meeting held by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on promoting the pilot program in Shanghai on April 9.

In 2022, the Commission for Overall Law-based Governance of the CPC Central Committee decided to start the pilot program of international commercial arbitration centers in the four provincial-level regions of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Hainan.

Since the launch of the pilot program, the Party committees and governments of the four pilot regions have attached great importance to the program by strengthening coordination and promoting the effective implementation of pilot work, achieving important progress at the current stage.

The MOJ calls for taking the construction of international commercial arbitration centers and first-class international arbitration institutions as an opportunity to deepen the opening-up of China's arbitration services. Greater efforts are urged to attract high-level international arbitration institutions and legal professionals to provide arbitration services in China in accordance with the law and relevant policies, and to promote the country's high-quality arbitration institutions in going global, in a bid to safeguard the rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and citizens overseas.