HONG KONG (AP) — Hollywood's top lobbyist has met with Chinese regulators and said he is hopeful that Beijing will ease its restrictions on movie imports.

Motion Picture Association of America Acting Chief Executive Bob Pisano met with the regulators on the sidelines of this week's Shanghai International Film Festival.

The Chinese government is considering its response to a World Trade Organisation ruling in December that urges it to let foreign studios distribute their own movies in the country.

Currently, the state-run China Film Group decides which movies to import and shares revenues for only 20 imports a year.

"The sense I get is that the Chinese government understands that a) the system has to change, and b) change is not going to be harmful to the Chinese film industry," Pisano told The Associated Press in Hong Kong.

"Our experience around the world is that when markets are free and open, the market of that industry prospers. When the market is closed, and therefore the filmmaking industry is not subject to the rigours of competition, it frankly doesn't succeed because they end up producing movies the public doesn't want to see," he said.

"You can't force the public to watch a movie they don't want to watch."

In China, domestically made blockbusters are catching up quickly in terms of production values and box office performance. But they still face stiff competition from Hollywood.

James Cameron's 3-D sci-fi epic "Avatar" earned nearly $200 million in China earlier this year, a record. China's entire box office takings in 2009 were $909 million.

Pisano called "Avatar" a rare phenomenon and said he didn't think it would scare Chinese movie officials into closing their markets further.

"'Avatar' is a 12-year phenomenon — that is, the last time James Cameron did a movie on that scale was 12 years ago," Pisano said, referring to Cameron's 1997 romance "Titanic," which was also a big hit in China.

"So once every 12 years is not a threat to anything," he said.