In a bid to become more international, Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, plans to improve the quality of its legal services for foreigners and establish an international commercial arbitration court over the next five years.
The host of this year's G20 Leaders Summit sees English, the global language of business, as key to its future development.
According to the city's latest five-year plan (2016-20), "legal environmental construction is key to becoming more international", while "English signs will be added as many as possible, and the current ones will be made more accurate".
Providing better legal services will also help attract more overseas investment in the city, according to the Supreme People's Court.
Li Liang, director of the court's trial management department, said it had established an English version of its own official website and asked grassroots courts to improve their legal services for foreigners as well.
It is now planning to make another website for disclosing verdicts in English, which will help foreigners understand Chinese judgments, Li said.
Jiang Qibo, chief judge of the court's case-filing tribunal, said at the end of last year that providing English legal services in the Yangtze River Delta region, where Hangzhou is located, is a must in the face of the increasing number of foreign disputes.
Commerce, marriage and intellectual property are the three main kinds of cases in this area, Jiang said.
He spoke highly of courts that have taken measures to better serve litigants in English in Yiwu, Zhejiang province and Shanghai's Putong district, where foreign investment is rising, but said such pockets of good practice were "far from enough as our country is going global".
It will be necessary to first provide English legal services in the delta region's other cities before extending the initiative across the country, Jiang said.
"Measures taken in Yiwu and Putong can be learned from, such as the construction of an interpreter database to guide foreigners who file cases, and the provision of judicial documents in English," he added.
Zhou Qiang, China's top judge, said in March that the way the country's judicial system is perceived on the world stage can be improved by better handling cases relating to foreigners.
According to the latest statistics released by the top court, Chinese courts heard 15,348 civil and commercial cases involving foreigners last year, about the same number as recorded in 2014.
But both Zhou and Jiang confirmed that Chinese courts are short of English talent, especially those who can communicate with foreign litigants in English.
Hangzhou's plan for the next five years pays attention to this problem, while also highlighting the importance of education for international talent.
