Small Business Reading Room

Friday, April 01, 2005

Doing Business in China with e-signatures is now legal

As of today, China has granted online signatures legal effect in an effort to help facilitate ecommerce and online trading.

According to the Ministry of Information Industry, the new ruling grants electronic signatures the same legal effect as handwritten signatures and seals for business transactions.

Score one for the global business community!

Is the next step to go completely paperless?

posted by Unknown at 12:33 PM - permalink 1 comments

1 Comments:

E-Signature laws are difficult to do well, but may work best if their usage is driven by businesses rather than mandated by government.

But a first step has to be taken by someone, and having the government legislate approval of e-signatures may be that first step.

Keep in mind that credit card transactions online have always involved e-signatures... :)

So, if anyone in China was taking credit cards already, then the official government action is really just paying lipservice to the reality.

By Anonymous, at 1:31 PM