More foreign-funded companies in Shanghai will set up trade unions next year, raising the proportion to 80 percent from the current 69.4 percent, local authorities said Thursday.

To date, 8,061 foreign-funded companies in the Chinese financial center have set up trade unions, said a spokesman for the Shanghai Municipal Council of Trade Unions.

More than 1,800 trade union branches have been set up in foreign-funded companies in Shanghai this year alone.

The spokesman said 358 companies that appear in the Fortune magazine top 500 had opened branches or offices in Shanghai, and 99 had set up trade unions.

The expansions of unions in the east China metropolis could be ascribed to government efforts since April, he said.

Wal-Mart, which has been widely criticized by human rights groups and labor organizations because it has traditionally not allowed trade unions in its outlets, founded its first trade union in its outlet in Jinjiang City, east China's Fujian Province on July 29.

Ever since, at least 60 more Wal-Mart outlets in China have set up trade unions with more than 6,000 members in such cities as Shenzhen, Nanjing, Jinan, Fuzhou, Shenyang, Dalian, Nanchang and Shanghai.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's, Roche, Pepsi, French bank BNP and Kodak have all followed suit.

Intel and other foreign-funded companies would set up trade unions in their Shanghai outlets in the first quarter of next year, the spokesman said.

Chinese trade union authorities have warned that union establishment should abide by China's trade union law, and that unions already established should give priority to safeguarding employees' rights while accelerating corporate development.

(Xinhua News Agency December 29, 2006)