Zero refusal for foreign reporters

Government ministries will be pushed to give better access to foreign journalists in a policy called "zero refusal", a senior official of the State Council Information Office (SCIO) said yesterday.

"Zero refusal means that the ministries must designate people to deal with calls and interview requests from foreign media and that they have to give a response within 24 hours or the period they prescribed, no matter what the result is," Guo Weimin, director of the SCIO press department, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

"It doesn't mean all applications will be accepted, but we have to tell the media how we handled it, so they can understand," he said.