Premier Wen Jiabao Tuesday urged the nation's government
officials to be well prepared for the enforcement of Law on
Administrative Licensing.
Administrative licensing, referring to formal legal permission
to conduct business or business-related activities, is a major
governmental function exercised by governments at all levels.
Wen said the officials should take enforcement of this law as an
opportunity to step up the transformation of government functions
and push for management innovations.
The law, approved by the nation's top legislature in August of
last year, will take effect on July 1.
Wen said the government should improve its methods of economic
adjustments and market supervision.
He urged government officials to pay more attention to social
service management and public service, and to provide more public
resources to those areas.
He also demanded that governments release their policies and
procedures to the public in a way that allows people to view public
service as transparent, open and efficient.
The premier spoke at a conference on how to implement the law on
administrative licensing attended by senior officials from all
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
He said government functions should be strictly separated from
enterprise management.
He called on further clarifications in the relationships between
government and enterprises, markets and society, and said the
market should play a fundamental role to its fullest capacity in
resources allocation.
"That is one of the most important tenets of this legislation,"
said Yu An, a professor of administrative law at Tsinghua
University Public Administration School.
Yu said enforcement will be a "serious, thorough and
institutional revolution" for the administrative body for their
major interests are at stake in this process.
The premier also urged senior officials to push for reforms of
administrative permission and slash unnecessary administrative
licensing items. The list has expanded so much over the years it
has seriously hampered China's efforts to build a market
economy.
The law requires all governmental bodies to straighten out
existing items before July 1. Licensing items that do not fit
within the law should stop being enforced.
Some governmental offices will be dissolved if their functions
lose a foothold in the clean-up process, and employees will be
dismissed.
There are some 4,100 items that require licensing in the
country, according to sources with the Legal Affairs Commission of
the NPC Standing Committee.
Overuse of licensing is a hotbed for corruption because it
creates more opportunities for kickbacks, said Ying Songnian,
professor and director of the Division of Law of the National
School of Administration.
Over-elaborate procedures, poor efficiency, and underground,
unfair or imprecise conditions for granting licenses also stand
out, he added.
An extreme case is the offices that were set up in Zhengzhou, a
city in Central China's Henan Province, in 1998, to centralize the
management of the local production of mantou, or steamed
bread, the most loved staple food of local residents.
The offices controlled the licensing for every business related
to steamed bread production, from flour mills to steamed bread
makers. They had the power to issue or retrieve the licenses for
mills that supply flour to steamed bread makers, while steamed
bread makers who purchase flours from unlicensed millers would have
their own licenses revoked.
The State Council began a nationwide campaign to rectify the
situation in 2001. State Council commissions and ministries have
given up the right to administer more than 1,000 licensing rights
and have handed 82 items over to industrial associations and other
intermediary agencies.
The premier said training should be enhanced among the officials
to help them better understand the law and therefore better enforce
it.
Vice-governors and senior officials in charge of legal affairs
in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities will attend
a week-long training program at the National School of
Administration in Beijing after the conference.
(China Daily January 7, 2004)