Ethical Business Cultures in China

Abstract

The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 30 democracies work together to address the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD.OECD Publishing disseminates widely the results of the Organisation's statistics gathering and research on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as the conventions, guidelines and standards agreed by its members. Publié également en français © OECD 2005No reproduction, copy, transmission or translation of this publication may be made without written permission. Applications should be sent to OECD Publishing: rights@oecd.org or by fax (33 1) 45 24 13 91. Permission to photocopy a portion of this work should be addressed to the Centre français d'exploitation du droit de copie, 20, rue des Grands-Augustins, 75006 Paris, France (contact@cfcopies.com). This survey is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General. ForewordThe 1960 Founding Convention of the OECD mandated the Organisation "to contribute to sound economic expansion in member, as well as non-member countries in the process of economic development". However, until the 1990s, and the end of the Cold War, most activities of the Organisation vis-à-vis non-OECD economies were conducted through official development assistance and the Development Assistance Committee. In the 1990s, that rapidly changed. The OECD now has programmes with at least seventy non-OECD economies, including a number of country specific programmes, notably with Russia, and more recently with China. It is with great satisfaction that I write a Foreword for this first ever Economic Survey of China by the Economics Department. Following the tradition of surveys of OECD economies, it focuses on policy and structural reforms to improve macroeconomic performance. This comes at a particularly opportune time. While there is great awareness in OECD countries about the increasing importance of the Chinese economy in a global context, there is much less knowledge of the extent to which China's economic policies have changed, or of the challenges that China still faces in its ongoing programme of reform. But these policies and their success or failure carry major cons...