From The New York Times:
Chinese officials promised today that new rules restricting the sale of foreign wire service news would not affect press freedoms. But they also strongly defended efforts to control the distribution of financial and economic news inside the country.
Xinhua, China’s main government news agency, issued regulations on Sunday that would make would it the gatekeeper, and presumably also the revenue collector, for all kinds of wire service news and information sold in China.
The regulations threaten to disrupt a business valued by major Western financial news providers, including Reuters and Bloomberg, at about $100 million a year. Most of the revenue comes from banks and brokerage houses that subscribe to Western news and data services to keep abreast of developments affecting stock, bond and currency markets. [Full Text]
