In an innovative move, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone has launched the country's first set of local regulations to promote innovation in its institutional restructuring of government.

The regulations, adopted by the standing committee of the city's people's congress last week, have blazed a trail in reforming its government departments.

Economic reform used to be compared to "crossing the river by feeling the stones" by its top architect Deng Xiaoping. In this process, setbacks were inevitable.

And they have been blamed for problems such as high prices blocking ordinary citizens from seeing doctors, the drain of state assets in the reform of state-owned enterprises, unequal opportunities for education and too high housing prices.

Others have maintained these problems are inevitable and, to find a solution, further reforms are needed.

Against this backdrop, the move by Shenzhen may be considered as an echo to the working report of Premier Wen Jiabao, which has called for further economic reforms.

The first of its kind, Shenzhen's regulations have set the tone for further reforms and are aimed at building an innovative government and society.

Those who have put forward good suggestions on reforms and have accomplished remarkable achievements in the institutional restructuring will be rewarded, according to the regulations.

Those who are in charge of particularly innovative work in reforms could be exempt from any punishment if they have mishaps in their work or they fail to make achievements as expected.

Even mishaps that bring about some economic losses could be overlooked, as long as they meet the three following conditions, according to the regulations.

First, the procedure of their work plan should conform with the relevant rules for reforms. Second, they can never make any illegal profits for themselves and their working units, and third, they cannot have collaborations with other units out of ill intentions.

Those who are passive in pushing reforms or intentionally block reforms, and whose violation of rules has resulted in errors in decision-making, will be punished, according to the rules.

The regulations also stipulate that public hearings must be held for those reforms that will have a strong impact on the interests and benefits of citizens.

All of this explicitly suggests that the regulations are designed to push for further institutional restructuring and for innovations to improve performance of the government.

It is absolutely right that further reforms are the only way forward and the country cannot afford to go back to its old economic and institutional ways.

But it seems that some regulations will be very hard to put into practice. For punishment exemptions, it will be hard to decide whether those held accountable for the failure of a reform have made illegal profits for themselves or their units, and it will be even harder to make sure their collaborations with other units are not out of ill intentions.

Without detailed explanations and practical pre-emptive measures for their application, the rules might be used as a shelter for those corrupt officials.

Furthermore, we should never forget that more haste, less speed. Further reforms are expected to solve the problems left over from previous reforms and bring opportunities for more healthy economic and social development, but require more caution and detailed planning.

(China Daily March 24, 2006)