DESPITE complaints from potential exhibitors and public controversy, the organizers of the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) plan to broaden the scrutiny of exhibitors who need to produce documentation proving they do not have criminal records.

Representatives of overseas companies in China are also required to submit the Police Clearance Certificate issued by the police bureau of his or her permanent place of residence, according to the new "Urgent Notice of New Change of Registration Regulations" released yesterday. However, overseas visitors were exempt from the requirement according to a notice last week.

In addition, overseas buyers are not allowed to take their own interpreters to the Fair. They were required to apply to the Interpreter Service Center if an interpreter was necessary.

The Canton Fair committee announced the decision requiring exhibitors and journalists to produce documentation proving they did not have criminal records last week and applicants have until next Thursday to submit their records.

This is the first time fair organizers implemented the requirement.

"Our overseeing body urged the inclusion of the requirement to effectively ensure safety during the event," the organizing committee's press officer Liang Yanfang said Tuesday.

To get the documentation, exhibitors must go to the police or provincial trade delegations, while journalists must go to police or media officials, who must sign the papers, she said.

"We understand safety is very important, because this is China's biggest trade event, especially with riots breaking out in Southwest China before the Beijing Olympic Games," Li Guangjun, a marketing manager with a ceramics firm in Chaozhou, Guangdong province, said.

"However, it's very inconvenient for me to get such a document, because I'm not a native of Chaozhou and I'll probably have to go back to my hometown in Anhui Province to get it."

Li also wondered whether the requirement would be effective.

Guangzhou-based lawyer Lu Dequan was critical of the requirement.

"It is both unnecessary and groundless to urge exhibitors and journalists to produce such documentation, because even if a person has a criminal record, that doesn't constitute grounds for refusing to admit them," Lu said.

(SD-Agencies)