UPDATE 1-Britain presses China on access for foreign firms

(Adds details on issues raised, paragraphs 7-9)

BEIJING, July 14 (Reuters) - Britain pressed China on Wednesday for better market access for foreign companies, underlining growing worries in the United States and the European Union about the difficulty of operating in the world's third-largest economy.

Foreign investors have generally enjoyed steadily widening business opportunities in China, especially since Beijing joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001 and opened new sectors to investment and competition.

That trend is now bumping up against inconsistent applications of regulations, concerns over registering and protecting intellectual property and indigenous innovation rules.

"There's a big economic opportunity, but just as we favour China having improved access to EU markets, well, there's a reciprocal side of that, which is improved access to China for British and other European companies," British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters in Beijing.

Hague said he had raised specific cases of restrictions faced by British business in talks with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, and would take up some of the issues when he met Premier Wen Jiabao.

"I do think there's a very important role for British diplomacy in that sense," Hague said.

The British Embassy said later in a statement that some of the issues raised included China's indigenous innovation rules and a request for preparations for foreign stock market listings in Shanghai to be speeded up.

There was also a request for progress on new rules to allow secondary listings of Chinese firms in London.

The statement mentioned no companies by name, citing commercial sensitivities.

A survey of EU businesses released on June 29 showed that optimism had dropped dramatically because of concerns about regulatory interference and unpredictability. [ID:nTOE65S03C]

U.S. President Barack Obama on July 7 called for a level playing field for U.S. companies in China, days after General Electric Co (GE.N) Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt caused a stir when he was quoted as saying Beijing was growing increasingly protectionist. [nN07154960]. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sugita Katyal)