Premier Wen Jiabao has called governments at all levels to be clean, pragmatic and efficient while administering their areas in accordance with the law.

Addressing a July 20-21 meeting attended by chiefs of provincial government general offices from across the nation, the premier said the government has the important task of improving the style of governing while deepening economic reforms and continuing to promote socialist democracy.

Vice Premiers Huang Ju, Wu Yi and Zeng Peiyan also attended the meeting.

Governments at all levels should attend to economic regulation and market supervision while giving more attention to social management and public services. One of their important tasks is improvement of their capacity to respond to unexpected incidents, said the premier.

He said the governments should abide by the administrative licensing law, which was designed to regulate government powers, and promote the rule of law.

Under the administrative licensing law, which took effect on July 1, commissions and ministries of the central government will no longer be able to empower themselves with franchising rights. Fee collection practices will be abandoned except for those permitted by law.

So far, commissions and ministries of the central government have given up control of 1,795 franchise rights, accounting for 48.9 percent of the former total. Provincial governments have also canceled a large amount of related licensing rights.

"If the law is enforced strictly, the corruption that plagues China's administrative licensing sector can be greatly reduced," said Wang Yongqing, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Office under the State Council, who helped draft the law.
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(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2004)