The congress of the Beijing Municipality is expected to hold a meeting this week to scrap a decade-old statute on the management of migrant workers, reported a local newspaper on Monday.

Beijing Morning Post said the municipal congress will convene the meeting from March 24 to 25, as it announced late in February, and will also mull over two other statutes.

According to law experts, the statute listed numerous restrictions on the city's 3 million-strong migrant workers, barring them from taking on certain jobs and businesses in the city and requiring them to pay fees before getting a job or starting a business.

"The legislation plan the city government has submitted to us did list the migrant worker statute as one to be revoked," said an official with the city congress.

Law experts acknowledged that the statute is somewhat discriminating because, according to it, migrant workers do not benefit from the preferential government policies enjoyed by local residents.

Despite some favorable changes recently promoted by the government, noted the reports by local media, kids of migrant workers still cannot study in schools as the children of local residents.

"However, the abolishment of the statute itself constitutes a big step forward made by Beijing toward the equal treatment of all those living within its territory," said Prof. Xu Zhangrun with the law school of elite Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He went on to say that the statute, adopted in April 1995, mirrors restrictions from the area of China's planned economy and has become unfit for the country's present conditions.

With the removal of the obstacles set by the statute, he added, Beijing will allure more capital and human resources from elsewhere in the country.

According to the municipal government, the migrant workers' population in the national capital currently stands at 3.5 million and is likely to top at least 4 million in the years ahead.

"As you know, since migrant workers have contributed a great deal to the city's modernization, they should be put in equal footing with locals because of their great share done to the city's development," said Ying Songnian, a deputy to the National Congress of China.

As soon as the statute is rescinded, migrant workers will be able to demand the same services from the city government as local residents, notes Beijing Morning Post.

"More than that, the city government could take more favorable policies into account to help resolve a host of problems the migrant workers may face during their daily life, such as children's education and housing loans," said Zhang Xin, an expert who studies issues related to public administration.

But there is a question of whether there are effective instruments that the municipal government can use to resolve problems that are likely to emerge after the statute is abolished.

City police said they will resort to temporary residence permits specially issued for migrants as a major managerial tool, which registers personal data such as age, location and employers.

"The residence permit will work as the key measure for the management of migrant workers and we will not do away with it rashly," said the police

(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2005)