Hebei establishes foreign-related legal service team

A symposium on foreign-related legal services was recently held in North China's Hebei province. At the event, the province launched a special action plan to support local enterprises in going global and announced the establishment of a foreign-related legal service team comprising 66 experts.

According to the Hebei Provincial Justice Department, the province has been actively strengthening institutional and workforce development for international legal cooperation. The province has built a talent pool of 342 personnel across six categories for international law enforcement cooperation within the public security system. It has also established a foreign-related legal talent pool of 474 professionals across four categories within the judicial administration system.

In addition, five law firms have been designated as training bases for foreign-related legal practice, while the construction of three international arbitration centers is steadily advancing.

The province has also established foreign-related rule-of-law research centers in collaboration with local universities to cultivate high-caliber talent.

Members of the newly established service team include core arbitrators, outstanding foreign-related lawyers, senior notaries, legal experts in business and trade promotion, and legal professionals from federations of returned overseas Chinese across the province. Covering diverse practice sectors and industrial focus areas, the team is divided into specialized subgroups and operates under a system of dynamic management and annual rotation.

Using a combination of itinerant and on-site services, the team will conduct legal risk assessments and compliance guidance in key industrial parks and enterprises, delivering full-chain legal services covering overseas investment, cross-border trade and intellectual property (IP) protection.

Moreover, Hebei plans to intensify talent training by implementing a foreign-related legal talent cultivation program. It will continue to organize lectures and themed training sessions on foreign-related legal services, and support local law firms in recruiting high-caliber foreign-related legal talent from Beijing and Tianjin. It will also support local universities in strengthening discipline building for foreign-related legal studies, and deepen university-industry-enterprise cooperation in order to jointly establish training and practice bases for foreign-related legal talent.

Under the action plan, participating entities will identify and summarize the legal service needs of foreign trade enterprises, strengthen foreign-related IP protection, and provide guidance on foreign-related legal services for private enterprises. These efforts will facilitate the alignment between services, needs, and proactive information sharing to create a closed-loop workflow covering demand collection, service delivery, and outcome feedback.

The province also plans to conduct multi-party joint initiatives. The Provincial Justice Department will collaborate with the Provincial State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce to host an exchange event on Hebei's arbitration services. It will launch a campaign to enhance foreign‑related rule‑of‑law capacity in partnership with the Provincial Department of Commerce, and roll out programs to improve commercial legal services for enterprises' global expansion together with the Provincial Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

In addition, Hebei will expand channels for international cooperation. The province will support its lawyer, notary and arbitration associations in expanding collaboration with legal institutions in countries participating in Belt and Road cooperation and promote the signing of more practical cooperation agreements, so as to continuously enhance the international influence and voice of Hebei's foreign-related legal services.