Simplifying government procedures will boost economy

Editor's Note: At a meeting on Jan 13, the State Council, China's Cabinet, vowed to further simplify administrative procedures and delegate central government powers to lower levels of government and market players. It also pledged to optimize services and lighten the burden on enterprises to create a better platform for business startups and innovation. The following are comments from the media:

To simplify administrative procedures and delegate central government power to lower levels of government or market players marks the first step toward the demarcation of the government and the market. It is also an important move to push forward supply-side reform and expand effective demand. Simplifying procedures and decentralization will help promote business startups and innovation. Statistics indicate that in the first three quarters of 2015, there were 10.66 million newly registered market entities, up 15.8 percent year-on-year, with a registered capital of 20.7 trillion yuan ($3.15 trillion), an increase of 40.9 percent year-on-year.

Despite a considerable cut in the number of items that need administrative examination and approval, irregular and low-efficiency administrative approval procedures still exist in quite a lot of areas. These considerably increase the costs for businesses. This is also against the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference, a tone-setting conference convened in mid-December, which urged the administrative burden on enterprises be reduced, procedures simplified, and unreasonable intermediary services abolished.