It came before the 27th session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC) concluded yesterday in Beijing.

The committee also passed two legislative interpretations of sections of the Criminal Code, announcement of factors involved in the termination of office of three Ninth NPC deputies, and two procedures to be used in the election of Taiwan and ethnic minority deputies to the 10th NPC.

The amendments to the law on the inspection of imports and exports stipulate that national technical rules, which are compulsory, must be applied to the imports and exports listed in the quarantine and inspection catalogue.

The non-compulsory international standards will be applied when China has no technical regulations concerning the commodities. In this case, the revised law requires an early draft of the national technical regulations.

The committee also passed two legislative interpretations of sections of the Criminal Code.

One of the legislative readings defines gang crimes and eliminates the input of civil servants as an obligatory factor when deciding whether to crack down on such crimes. Another clarifies what constitutes the crime of misappropriating public funds.

"The two interpretations will help judicial authorities clear away problems that have emerged in the application of the Criminal Code," said Li Peng, chairman of the Ninth NPC Standing Committee.

Only the NPC Standing Committee has the power to make legislative interpretations of current laws, which have the same force as the laws themselves, according to the Legislative Procedure Law.

Li Fuqian, a Henan deputy to the Ninth NPC, was recalled by the local people's congress. He was accused of submitting false accounting reports when he acted as board chairman of the Zhengzhou Baiwen Corporation, a struggling Chinese retailer now facing possible delisting from the Shanghai stock exchange.

The committee yesterday issued the announcement of the dismissal.

Another two deputies on the black list are Mo Jun from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region for allegedly acquiring a huge amount of property from unidentified sources and taking bribes, and Xue Shouqin, a Jiangsu deputy, for allegedly taking bribes.

The five-day session also passed the procedures on ethnic minority quota allocations of deputies to be elected to the 10th NPC and on the election of Taiwan deputies.

The 10th NPC will start its five-year tenure next March.

The 55 ethnic minorities, whose population accounts for 8.44 per cent of the national population, will have 360 NPC deputies, 12 per cent of the total number of deputies in the nation.

The committee also ratified an extradition treaty with Ukraine.

(China Daily April 29, 2002)