The 10th National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature of China, adopted Monday a plan submitted by the State Council for streamlining government departments.

According to the plan, adopted by a large majority vote at the third plenary meeting of the on-going first session of the 10th NPC, one ministerial-level department has been struck from the list to reduce the total number from 29 to 28.

New in the list is the Ministry of Commerce, which is mandated to exercise the functions of the former State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, which have disappeared from the list.

The State Development Planning Commission is renamed the State Development and Reform Commission, which is put in charge of the country's economic restructuring, while the State Family Planning Commission is renamed the State Population and Family Planning Commission, which takes the responsibility of beefing up research in population development.

Under the government restructuring plan, the State Council will form a commission for the management of state property, responsible for the reform and reorganization of state-owned enterprises, and a commission to regulate the banking industry, and establish a state food and drug administration on the basis of the State Drug Administration to reinforce supervision over the safety of food, health products and cosmetics. The State Administration of Work Safety will be upgraded to oversee industrial production and coal mining.

In the last round of government streamlining, the number of ministry-level departments under the State Council was cut to 29 from 40. Before that, China attempted to streamline the government in 1982, 1988 and 1993.

(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2003)