China's landmark property law, which grants equal protection to state and
private properties, is getting closer to approval as a revised draft was put to
lawmakers for final deliberation.
The decision was made at a presidium meeting of the Fifth Session of the
Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) Thursday morning.
The draft property law has been deliberated by nearly 3,000 lawmakers at the
NPC annual session since March 8. The NPC Law Committee then made more than 60
revisions to the draft according to the opinions of NPC deputies and tabled the
revised draft to lawmakers 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 for voting.
Some legislators suggested further revisions, some of which were adopted into
the latest draft after careful studies, said Yang.
Yang said the draft further clarified the ownership of wild animals and
botanic resources and the use of land for construction in accordance with
suggestions from the lawmakers.
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 times of reading, the NPC Standing Committee
decided last December to put it for voting at the Fifth Session of the Tenth
NPC, believing that 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 puts domestic and foreign-funded enterprises on an equal
footing for income taxes, should also be put for final deliberation by the
lawmakers.
Revisions in the latest version of the draft were mainly made to avoid
misinterpretations and ambiguity , according to Yang.
Currently, the actual average income tax burden on Chinese companies is 25
percent, while that on foreign enterprises is 15 percent. The draft sets a new
tax rate of 25 percent for both.
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.
The presidium meeting was presided over by Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Tenth
NPC Standing Committee.
