BEIJING - The Ministry of Commerce is using CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) indicators like environmental protection and employee welfare to appraise exporters - including domestic- and overseas-funded enterprises - to ensure they meet international standards.
The use of the indicators reflects the government's hope Chinese companies will fulfill their CSR responsibilities, Vice-Minister Ma Xiuhong said Saturday at the 2010 China CSR Annual Conference.
The conference was organized by the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI), the China Charity Federation (CCF), the Chinese Private Economy Research Association (CPERA), and the China Enterprise News.
CAEFI President Shi Guangsheng spoke highly of foreign-funded firms' role in promoting CSR principles in the country.
"Foreign-funded companies are both beneficiaries and contributors in China's economic development," he said.
According to Fan Baojun, president of the CCF, enterprises of various kinds have become major donors with their contributions rising every year.
Fan said domestically-funded firms gave the CCF 200 million to 300 million yuan (29 million-44 million US dollars) in the early 1990s but it has now reached 1 billion yuan.
In 2008, the year a deadly earthquake killed more than 80,000 people in southwest China's Sichuan Province and neighboring areas, companies donated over 4 billion yuan. Last year, even though there was no call for donations to help disaster-affected people, donations from enterprises reached 4.6 billion yuan.
Yuji Kiyokawa, president of the Japan-China Economic Association, said Chinese companies can share their CSR experiences with Japanese counterparts to achieve both ethical and financial ends.
At the meeting, some discussed recent incidents concerning corporate behavior, including the spate of suicides by employees of Foxconn, one of the world's largest manufacturers of electronic products.
Meeting participants urged companies to take the welfare of employees seriously.
The conference gave awards to 62 companies, both domestic and foreign-funded, for their CSR efforts.
