The State Council canceled and adjusted 314 administrative examination and approval projects
November 15 12:02:03, 2024
In the past ten years, 70% of the original administrative examination and approval projects have been cancelled, and all matters that can be adopted after-the-fact supervision and indirect management are not subject to pre-approval. The Chinese government has again applied for administrative approval. The Chinese government network yesterday announced the "Decision of the State Council on the Sixth Batch of Cancellation and Adjustment of Administrative Approval Items" (hereinafter referred to as "Decision") to allow the outside world to agree. This was actually a decision made by the State Council executive meeting hosted by Premier Wen Jiabao on August 22. At that time, it was decided to cancel and adjust the above-mentioned projects, and it also approved Guangdong Province to take the lead in the reform of the administrative examination and approval system. Since the reform of the administrative examination and approval system was launched in 2001, the State Council has cancelled and adjusted 2,497 administrative examination and approval projects in six batches in 10 years, accounting for 69.3% of the original total; 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) have cancelled this level. More than 37,000 approval projects were adjusted, accounting for 68.2% of the original total. The focus of this reform is to clean up the investment projects, social undertakings and non-administrative licensing projects, especially those involving the real economy, small and micro enterprise development, and private investment. Professor Jing Jiajia of the State University of Fudan University told the “First Financial Daily†that this is actually a trend. The government’s management of the economic field is relatively broad and general. “There are some issues that can be handed over to enterprises or intermediary organizations. It is decided that the government's release of approval is to keep pace with the times." He believes that the reforms of the past decade have followed a path from shallow to deep and from easy to difficult. "But the administrative examination and approval is also reasonable, and all countries also exist. It is not appropriate to make absolute requirements and cancel all approvals." The depreciation of real estate pre-sale licenses The State Council decided to cancel and adjust 314 administrative approval projects, of which 184 were cancelled. 117 items were decentralized and 13 items were merged. The “real estate pre-sale permit†was changed from the “real estate management department of the local people's government at or above the county level†to the “real estate management department of the municipal and county-level people's governments with districtsâ€, which was interpreted by some as the property market policy. The new signal, because the approval authority is decentralized, speeding up the issuance of pre-sale permits for commercial housing, will speed up the growth of the supply of the property market, or to some extent, curb housing prices and stabilize the property market. However, Jingjiao believes that this is mainly due to the decision-making from the perspective of administrative examination and approval reform, and may not have much to do with the macro-control of the property market. The "Decision" not only announced specific projects, but also delivered a clear signal. That is: the administrative approval project should be further cancelled and adjusted. Where citizens, legal persons or other organizations can decide on their own, the market competition mechanism can be effectively regulated, and the government organizations or intermediaries can self-discipline management matters, the government must withdraw. No pre-approval is allowed for any matter that can be used for post-supervision and indirect management. Administrative licenses set in violation of the provisions of the Administrative Licensing Law in the form of departmental regulations and documents shall be corrected within a time limit. At the same time, the "Decision" also explicitly requires the reform of the administrative examination and approval system to be closely integrated with the investment system, fiscal and taxation financial system, social system and administrative management system reform. In this regard, Gao Shangquan, honorary president of the China Economic System Reform Research Association, also bluntly stated at the Moganshan meeting jointly hosted by this newspaper. This is related to the transformation of government functions. Although the transformation of government functions has made significant progress in recent years, The influence of long-term planned economic system and thinking inertia, in many places and departments, the government's direct intervention still penetrates into many aspects of microeconomic activities. Gao Shangquan emphasized: "All things that the market entity has the ability to do must be handed over to the market participants. The main responsibility of the government is to create a level playing field for the market players." This is in line with the above comments. The "Decision" to promote the prevention and control of corruption in the field of administrative examination and approval also mentioned that it is necessary to further promote the prevention and control of corruption in the field of administrative examination and approval. In the relationship between administrative approval and corruption, the economist Wu Jinglian introduced the "rent-seeking theory" to analyze the corruption in China's transition period. He proposed that “the key is to minimize administrative approvals and to standardize them†in order to minimize corruption. Last month, when he was interviewed by the media, he once again said that to control corruption from the source, it is necessary to reform the administrative examination and approval system. In this regard, Jing Jiajia also said that administrative examination and approval will be related to corruption and rent-seeking. However, if we want to control corruption, it is not enough to pass this link. We need to strengthen and strengthen the bottom-up supervision and punishment. The combination of transparency and transparency in the operation of administrative power can really make a difference. However, China's regional differences are large, and the "one size fits all" reform may also encounter difficulties in implementation. In particular, it is necessary to beware of "departmental interests" and "localism" resulting in a central intentional discount.