The Chinese central government Monday held a national meeting to lay out the implementation of the guideline on improving government under the rule of law, the administrative licensing law and the newly-amended work rule of the State Council.

Premier Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of administering in line with the law and urged officials to improve their administrative ability in a speech on Monday.

The guideline, which took effect March 22, says that China should achieve its goal of building a government under the rule of law in the next decade and elaborates the concrete goals in the administrative reform and other fields.

In order to achieve the goal, governments at all levels should strengthen the administrative legislation, not only on economy but also on social service. The legislation should stick to the principles of putting the people first and to the unity of different laws and regulations, said Wen.

Different government departments should also take their responsibilities strictly in line with the law and speed up the administrative reform, standardizing the law enforcement staff and simplifying procedures, said Wen.

In addition, the governments should perfect the supervision mechanism and encourage supervision on their administrative power, including internal supervision and external supervision from the congress and media. A strict system of accountability should be formed and departments and officials enjoying powers should take responsibility for their errors, according to Wen.

He added that the departments and officials who were found to malpractice and breach their duties by the supervision would be punished in line with the law.

Wen also stressed that officials at all levels should fully implement the Administrative Licensing Law, which will take effect as of July 1. The law will restrict governments' power, help increase the transparency of the administrative approval procedures, and reduce the cost of administration.

As an important law to regulate the behaviors of governments, the law will have a huge and far-reaching impact on the government work. Governments at all levels should speed up the management reform and improve officials' managing ability by strictly enforcing the law, said Wen.

In order to regulate the performance of the central departments, China recently amended the work regulation of the State Council. Premier Wen called for all staff of central departments to study the regulation and set good examples for their subordinates.

Officials of governments at all levels should lay out concrete plans in all aspects to ensure the comprehensive enforcement of the laws and regulations. The senior leaders should be models in learning and abiding by the law, Wen said.

China started its efforts to regulate administration by passing the Administrative Procedure Law in 1989. So far, China passed the Law on State Compensation in 1994, the Law on Administrative Punishment in 1996 and the Law on Administrative Licensing in 2003.A series of administrative laws have been listed on the legislative plan of the 10th National People's Congress (2003-2008), China's legislature.

The new central government of China has paid special attention to the building of governments and a series of laws and regulations governing the operation of the governments of various levels have been adopted since it was established a year ago.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2004)