China's landmark property law, which grants equal protection to both State and private property, took a step closer to approval when a revised draft was put to lawmakers for final deliberation.

The decision to put forward the draft was made at a presidium meeting of the Fifth Session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) yesterday morning.

The nearly 3,000 lawmakers at the NPC's annual session started deliberating the draft on March 8.

The NPC Law Committee then made more than 60 revisions to the draft according to the opinions of NPC deputies and tabled a revised draft for further deliberation on March 13.

Yang Jingyu, chairman of the Law Committee, told the presidium meeting that the majority of lawmakers agreed that the revised draft was "practicable" and should be put to a vote.
Some legislators suggested further revisions, some of which were adopted into the latest draft after careful study, said Yang.

Yang said that in accordance with lawmakers' suggestions, the draft further clarifies the ownership of wild animals and botanic resources and the use of land for construction.

As part of the draft civil code, the draft property law was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for the first review in 2002 after nearly 10 years of preparations.

After an unprecedented seven readings, the NPC Standing Committee decided last December to put the draft to a vote at the fifth session of the 10th NPC, saying the draft "represented a crystallization of the wisdom of the collective and was about to be mature".

The presidium meeting also agreed that a revised draft of the enterprise income tax law, which creates a flat corporate tax rate for domestic and foreign-funded enterprises, should also be put forward for final deliberation by lawmakers.

The revisions to the latest version of the draft were mainly aimed at avoiding misinterpretations and ambiguity, Yang said.

Also tabled for final deliberation by lawmakers are draft resolutions on the work report of the NPC Standing Committee, the election of the deputies to the 11th NPC and the work reports of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, according to decisions made by the presidium meeting.

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