305 representative offices opened since 2017 law took effect
Analysts called for more specific regulations and support to help overseas NGOs register in China after the country's first law to manage overseas NGO entered its second year.
A total of 259 overseas NGOs have registered 305 representative offices since the country's first law on overseas NGO activities took effect on January 1, 2017, while 224 NGOs filed 487 temporary activities, according to a report released by Beijing Normal University's China Philanthropy Research Institute on Thursday.
Fifty-two percent of the registered offices are engaged in economics and trade, with most having the Ministry of Commerce as their regulator. "The most number of NGOs registered in China are U.S.-based," said the office.
Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and Oxfam are among those which have registered in China. The report said these NGOs entered China in the 1980s and 1990s.
Oxfam, a charity dedicated to fighting poverty, registered representative offices in Guangdong, Gansu, Yunnan and Beijing and have been allowed to conduct activities in China, said the report.
NGOs not registered continue to face problems.
A former employee of a U.S.-based NGO on sex equality, surnamed Zheng, told the Global Times on Monday that the organization's office in Beijing was closed in September 2017 for failing to register.
The office was moved to Thailand. "Some people moved with the office, while others left the organization," she said.
Some unregistered overseas NGOs have applied for temporary activities, Duan Jianqiang, a liaison officer at the NGO management office of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, told the Global Times on Monday.
"Others are preparing registration documents," he said.
The report said that overseas NGOs could further help China's development and called for more detailed regulations. "The government and institutes should be encouraged to supervise NGOs," it said.
Most registered offices in 2017 were located in Beijing, Shanghai and Southwest China's Yunnan Province. Beijing has 52 organizations on poverty relief and education out of 106, while Shanghai has more economic and trade NGOs, the report said.
The report added that 182 temporary activities were conducted in Southwest China in 2017.
Adopted by the top legislature in April 2016, the new law urges all NGOs outside the Chinese mainland to secure government approval to operate on the mainland.
