Shanghai
and Beijing
are eliminating hundreds of administrative licensing requirements
in accordance with the new Law on Administrative Licensing, which
will take effect on July 1. Administrative licensing, the formal
legal permission needed to conduct business or business-related
activities, is a major governmental function exercised by
authorities at all levels.
"Around half of the 217 administrative licenses established by
law and local governmental regulations will be canceled," said Jiao
Yang, a spokesperson for the Shanghai municipal government, on
Wednesday.
Doing so will enable the Shanghai government to strengthen its
service functions in the market economy environment, said Jiao.
Shanghai authorities have pledged to give priority to market
competition and hand more power to industry associations and other
intermediary agencies in terms of licensing. The city government
will also closely follow up the central government's decision to
phase out some national administrative licenses.
Currently, over 1,000 procedures requiring state-level
administrative licenses are being implemented in the city,
according to Jiao.
On Tuesday, the Beijing municipal government announced that it
plans to eliminate 174 local administrative licensing items: more
than 50 percent of the items that currently require government
approval.
Topping the list is elimination of the employment identification
cards for people from areas outside the capital who are seeking
work in Beijing, according to a Xinhua report.?
Also, former farmers no longer need official permission to
change from rural to non-rural residence registration when they are
hired by a company located in urban Beijing.
Various departments of the Beijing municipal government have
reported 2,037 administrative items that need to be cleared, with
1,663 confirmed to fall within the category of administrative
licensing items. Of that number, 19 percent are established by the
Beijing municipal government and the remainder by the central
government.
Of the 308 local administrative licensing items, 174 will be
cancelled, 98 will be maintained, 30 items have been combined with
others and six have been altered to require temporary
permission.
The items that are being freed from administrative licensing are
mainly those that can be regulated by the market or decided by
enterprises.
Mayor Wang
Qishan has ordered all departments and governments at the
district and county levels to revise procedures that are not in
accordance with the Law on Administrative Licensing.
Over the years, hazardous expansion of licensing requirements,
over-elaborate procedures, inefficiency and under-the-table deals
for granting licenses have seriously infringed upon the rights and
interests of individuals and corporations.
The Law on Administrative Licensing, which was passed by the
Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress last
August, confines the power of establishing administrative licensing
procedures to the governments at central and provincial levels. It
also forbids unnecessary administrative licensing and simplifies
procedures for acquiring licenses.
(China Daily April 8, 2004)