Luo Zhijun is the newly elected mayor of Nanjing, capital city of
east China's Jiangsu Province, and is working to bring a new
atmosphere to local politics. He is going to set up a public
service government, he told reporters while in Beijing
participating in the on-going session of the 10th National People's
Congress.
"Functions of government should run according to international
practice. Since China's membership of the WTO, the government
should now transfer to a government by duty' from a
multi-functional government'." Its major task will be to target
economic adjustment, and market social administration and the
supervision of public affairs settlements to name but a few of its
vital divisions, he said.
"The reform aims at changing functions of government such as
raising administrative efficiency and reducing administrative costs
in order to form a regulated administrative system with justice and
transparency," Luo said. "Department functions should be
scientifically defined and administratively examined with all
approvals simplified and regulated."
In
the public service government set up in Nanjing City, the functions
of government are quantified by 20 indexes in five areas that
include public products, service ability and quality,
administrative systems and its achievements to name but a few.
Last year, 54 government departments in Nanjing were cut down to
41, 46 regulations and 150 documents were abolished and two-thirds
of examination and approval procedures adopted by city
administrative departments were done away with. E-government,
one-stop services, administrative "super-markets" and mayoral email
have been put into use. Four complaint centers have been founded
for foreign enterprises, private enterprises and private scientific
enterprises.
(China.org.cn by Liu Yuming, March 17, 2003)