China will seriously study requests filed by the United States and the European Union over financial information services regulations and settle the problem under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

The United States and European Union asked the WTO to launch a dispute settlement process on Monday against China's regulations on financial information service management.

China respected the choices of other WTO members and would seriously study the requests and follow the WTO dispute settlement process to solve the problem, the spokesman said.

To promote the healthy and orderly distribution of news and information, the Xinhua News Agency was authorized to examine and approve the publication in China of economic information and news by foreign news agencies and their information subsidiaries and publicized regulations on September 2006.

However, the United States and the European Union disagree with the regulations, media reports said.