The clarification of functions will be achieved through deepened reform of its public administrative sector, said Wang Feng, division chief of the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform.

The WTO requires that within a single country, goods and services from home and abroad must be treated equally in its administrative system, procedures and actions.

The divisions of power between central and local governments still needs to improve in China, Wang said. Some functions overlap and some are failing to meet their responsibilities.

"That may lead to local protectionism, monopolies, market separation and policy inconsistence, which will hamper the uniform implementation of China's commitments to the WTO,'' Wang said.

He said future reform of the public administrative sector will clarify the functions of the central and local governments to form a system with rational division of power, coordinated operation and effective supervision.

"Macroeconomic regulation is exclusive to the central government and economic management powers by city, county, town and village departments are being gradually weakened,'' Wang said.

Wang was speaking at an international symposium held Thursday on how to innovate the Chinese public administrative system in the post-WTO era.

"Deepening the reform of the administrative management system is not only a requirement of the WTO, but is also critical to the need for establishing and improving a socialist market economy and promoting economic and social development,'' said Li Tielin, minister of the office for public sector reform.

China watchers also agreed that reform in this area is needed.

"How the government is put together often determines how well it can work,'' said Odile Sallard, an official with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organization that helps governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges in a global economy.

China is now working with the OECD in its reform of the public administrative sector.

China conducted four major institutional reforms in public administration along with the country's economic development in 1982, 1988, 1993 and 1998.

"These reforms, particularly those since 1998, strengthened the government's macro-regulatory functions, promoted independent decision-making by State-owned enterprises, rationalized relations between central and local governments, downsized government and more importantly -- created an enabling environment for a government which meets the demands of a market economy,'' said Leitner Kerstin, a resident representative from the United Nations Development Program.

The two-day symposium, organized by the National Academy of Public Administration, attracted more than 150 scholars and government officials from home and abroad.

(China Daily December 6, 2002)