China's landmark property law, which grants equal protection to
state and private properties, is getting closer to approval as a
revised draft was put to lawmakers for final deliberation.
The decision was made at a presidium meeting of the Fifth
Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) Thursday
morning.
The draft property law has been deliberated by nearly 3,000
lawmakers at the NPC annual session since March 8. The NPC Law
Committee then made more than 60 revisions to the draft according
to the opinions of NPC deputies and tabled the revised draft to
lawmakers for further deliberation on March 13.
Yang Jingyu, chairman of the Law Committee, told the presidium
meeting that the majority of lawmakers agreed that the revised
draft was "practicable" and should be put for voting.
Some legislators suggested further revisions, some of which were
adopted into the latest draft after careful studies, said Yang.
Yang said the draft further clarified the ownership of wild
animals and botanic resources and the use of land for construction
in accordance with suggestions from the lawmakers.
As part of the draft civil code, the draft property law was
submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for the first review in
2002 after nearly 10 years of preparations.
After an unprecedented seven times of reading, the NPC Standing
Committee decided last December to put it for voting at the Fifth
Session of the Tenth NPC, believing that the draft "represented a
crystallization of the wisdom of the collective and was about to be
mature".
The presidium meeting also agreed that a revised draft of the
enterprise income tax law, which puts domestic and foreign-funded
enterprises on an equal footing for income taxes, should also be
put for final deliberation by the lawmakers.
Revisions in the latest version of the draft were mainly made to
avoid misinterpretations and ambiguity, according to Yang.
Currently, the actual average income tax burden on Chinese
companies is 25 percent, while that on foreign enterprises is 15
percent. The draft sets a new tax rate of 25 percent for both.
Also tabled for final deliberation by lawmakers are draft
resolutions on the work report of the NPC Standing Committee, the
election of the deputies to the 11th NPC and the work reports of
the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate,
according to decisions made by the presidium meeting.
The presidium meeting was presided over by Wu Bangguo, chairman
of the Tenth NPC Standing Committee.
(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2007)