China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), a national organization of foreign economic relations and trade composed of representative personages, enterprises and organizations from China抯 economic and trade circles, was set up in 1952. Upon the approval of the State Council, CCPIT started using China Chamber of International Commerce?as its alternative name in 1988. In November of 1994, it joined the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) as a representative of the Chinese business community and set up the ICC China National Committee (ICC China).

The CCPIT Department of Legal Affairs (DLA) is one of the important functional departments of CCPIT/CCOIC. It comprises Office for Certification & Authentication, ATA Office, Conciliation Center, Legal Counsel Office, Department for Average Adjustment, Office for Service Development, and in addition, an office in Shenzhen.

In pursuance of the consistent CCPIT/CCOIC purpose of promoting the development of China's foreign economic relations and trade, propelling the economic and technological cooperation between China and foreign countries and serving enterprises at home and abroad, the CCPIT Department of Legal Affairs has been providing domestic and foreign enterprises with legal services, including certification and authentication, ATA Carnet, conciliation, legal counseling, average adjustment, etc., gaining wide acclaim from Chinese and foreign business communities for its fair-mindedness and authoritativeness. The department has been submitting legislative proposals to the government and state legislative body and working towards expanding Chinese enterprises?foreign exchanges and strengthening their international ties, thus making an important contribution in these respects.

Against the background of the accelerated process of economic globalization, the Chinese economic development is facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. The focus of the legal affairs department's work is to help Chinese enterprises to seize the opportunities and take up the challenges in the fierce competition. We will give greater play to our advantages of being highly competent professionally and having extensive outside contacts, constantly expand the range and spectrum of our services to enterprises, explore new areas of services, and enthusiastically help domestic enterprises to take part in competition in international markets while further strengthening our contacts with the outside world, helping foreign enterprises to know more about the Chinese market, about China抯 economic policies and its economic and trade laws in a more energetic effort to accelerate the sound development of China's economy and foreign trade.