Wei Liqun, director of the State Council Research Office, a think tank of Chinese government, called for continuing the transformation of government functions, citing it as the key in deepening overall reform.

Wei said in Monday's People's Daily that China's administrative system reform has made some important progress but there is still a long way to go, especially on the reform of transforming government functions.

According to him, the major problems include that the government intervened in some areas it should not have, the government's functions of social and public service are still weak, organization was not appropriate, and the assessment of officials and various levels of governments was not scientific.

Wei said China should continue its efforts to promote the transformation of governmental functions so that the government will not intervene in matters that should be dealt with by enterprises, intermediate organizations and the market.

Besides, Wei said that China has entered the latter-transition period of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its opening up is facing a more complicated international environment, which brings new challenges to administration and governance.

The government's functions should focus on economic control, market supervision, social administration and public service while enterprises should perform as the major body of the market. Only in this way can the market rationally allocate resources, and an effective macro-controlling system arise, said Wei.

While doing a good job in the management of economic readjustment, the government should put more efforts in providing public services and social management, said Wei.

Meanwhile, Wei called for improvement of the structure of government organizations and setting up an unified and efficient government.

Besides transforming government functions, Wei went on to say that China should pace up reforms involved in economic structure readjustment, open wider to the outside world, and carry out reforms involving the interests of masses.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2005)