At a press conference held today by the National Development and Reform Commission on macroeconomic performance, spokesman Yan Pengcheng introduced the progress of reform in both property rights and prices. He said:
First, we should establish and improve the overall planning and coordination mechanism for property rights protection, and require all localities to establish a mechanism for the coordination of property rights protection led by the party committees and jointly attended by the National people's Congress, the government, and the judiciary.
The second is to carry out the cleaning up of laws and regulations related to property rights protection, requiring all localities to conscientiously organize and do a good job in cleaning up the relevant regulations and normative documents in their respective regions, and to establish a long-term mechanism for the cleaning up of regulations and normative documents related to property rights protection.
Third, we should screen and correct property rights disputes that are strongly reflected by society in accordance with the law, publish a number of representative cases of high social concern, and at the same time increase the intensity of legal aid.
Fourth, efforts should be made to solve property rights disputes strongly reflected by a number of enterprises and the masses, and to form a number of typical cases for the protection of property rights, so that the masses of the people can have a real sense of gain.
Fifth, we will further strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, improve the intellectual property protection system, focus on solving the problems of low cost of infringement and high cost of safeguarding rights, further strengthen the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and carry out special rectification actions in key areas.
Sixth, continue to strengthen the integrity of government affairs and the construction of the business environment, in view of the policy "day and night change" and "new officials ignore old accounts" and other issues, to carry out special governance actions to break government trust; The protection of property rights is listed as an important part of special governance, the creation of credit model cities and the construction of business environment.
Second, local pricing projects will be cut by a further 30 per cent. In accordance with the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission launched a new round of revision of local pricing catalogues in 2017, pushing local governments to further liberalize competitive areas and link prices and minimize the scope of government pricing.
So far, with the exception of Tibet and Xinjiang, we have completed the examination and approval of the revision of the pricing catalogues of 29 provinces. Through this round of revision, local government pricing projects have been further reduced to an average of about 32 items, a reduction of 30%, on the basis of a 55% reduction in 2015 and an average of about 45 items, and prices in competitive areas and links have been basically liberalized. The reserved pricing items are mainly concentrated in the fields of water supply and drainage, gas, electricity, transportation, environmental protection, education, medical care, pension, funeral, cultural tourism, affordable housing, important professional services and so on.
According to the Price Law, the local pricing catalogue is the basis for the local government to exercise its pricing power and perform its pricing duties in accordance with the law. The promulgation and implementation of the new local pricing catalogue is conducive to further clarifying the boundary of pricing power between the government and the market, ensuring that there is no pricing power outside the catalogue, and fixing the results of price reform and decentralization in the form of a catalogue; It is also conducive to further give full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, increase the flexibility of price response, release and stimulate market vitality, and promote the high-quality development of China's economy.
