In view of its current state of infrastructure, ecological environment, superior industries and efforts to promote technological progress, Guizhou has formulated a series of laws and regulations towards the smooth implementation of the national "Go West" strategy.

Guizhou has formulated and enforced 98 local laws and regulations since 1998, accounting for 43 percent of the total in the province, according to Wang Linpu, chairman of the legislation committee of the provincial people's congress.

The non-State sector in Guizhou has experienced fast growth. Its share in the province's total value-added industrial output rose from 22.5 percent in 1997 to 29.6 percent last year.

Local legislation is an important supplement to national legislation, Wang Linpu said.

Guizhou's legislature has not purely copied national laws, but has formulated supplementary rules that are in line with local characteristics, including local regulations on forest, land and mineral resources.

Guizhou's ethnic minorities comprise one third of its total, with autonomous areas accounting for 55.5 per cent of its total territory. Over the past five years, Guizhou endorsed 42 regulations governing ethnic autonomy, or nearly 70 percent of such rules in effect, Wang said.

Regulations on education in the Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of southwestern Guizhou, have established special classes for ethnic minorities and ethnic girls.

The rules allow ethnic children in remote, poor and mountainous areas to enrol in a primary school at the age of nine. These measures have helped raise the school enrolment rate among ethnic children to 96 percent in the prefecture.

In fields lacking related national laws, Guizhou has taken the lead in forming independent legislation in an active and prudential way. For instance, Guiyang, capital of Guizhou has hammered out a set of measures on the donation of remains and corneas of the dead.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2003)