China’s administrative regulator has announced a significant change of policy on representative offices of foreign companies by reducing the maximum number of reps to just four. This could force some investors to register joint ventures or wholly foreign owned-enterprises, establish several new representative offices, or train existing reps to do more work.

The State Administration of Industry and Commerce published its Notice on Strengthening Administration for Registrations of Foreign Enterprises Resident Representative Institutions on January 15 2010, although the changes took effect on January 4. It also requres that to be qualified to set up a representative office in China, a foreign company shall have been duly existing for at least two years in its home country.