As the sixth reform on the State Council organs since China's reform and opening up, idea solicitation concerning "greater department reform" is coming to an end, Eastday.com reported on January 14, 2008.

The State Council has entrusted relevant departments to make special studies on the greater department reform. "The report will be submitted to the State Council before January 20," a person in charge told the China Business News. 

According to the report, currently the Chinese government organs have the following defects: too much micro-controls; insufficient macro-economic management, market supervision, social management and public services; overlapping government organs with similar functions.

Prof. Li Junpeng from the China National School of Administration pointed out that currently the departments of the State Council have more than 80 duties. The construction department alone has overlapping functions with 24 other departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the transportation department.

Overlapping administrative functions may affect the economy negatively. Fan Gang, Secretary-General of the Chinese Economic Restructuring Foundation, recently published his research results, indicating that China's administration costs from 1999 to 2005 have negatively affected the economic growth, reaching a minus 1.73 percent.
   
"With regard to the government reform, I believe the next step on our agenda is to cut down government administrative costs," Fan said.

Prof. Mao Shoulong with the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China, believed that in the new round of reform of government organs, the State Council department reform shall continuously focus on the following three aspects: to reform departments with economic regulatory powers and market supervision functions so as to strengthen macro-control and reduce micro-intervention; to reform departments with public service functions and push forward institutional reforms; to reform state-owned enterprises and to create a favorable competition environment for further development of the market economy.
 
Mao and other experts have recently finished a report on the reform of government organs. The report suggests a two-stage approach for the reform: a trial within the departments of transportation and agriculture in 2008, gradually extended to the public service areas; and a full-scale reform shall follow in 2013 building on the achievements.

The term "Greater department" was first introduced in the political report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The report says that "We will step up our efforts to streamline government organs, explore ways to establish greater departments with integrated functions".

The China Comment claimed that this was a brand new reform idea that pointed out the correct direction for the reform of the administrative system.
 
Since 1982, China has carried out five major reforms on the administrative system: the State Council cut 39 departments in 1982; in 1988 the State Council's departments and Organizations directly under it were reduced from 67 to 60 and a total of 9700 employees were also cut; in 1993 the number of such departments and organizations was cut from 86 to 59 and their working staff reduced by 20 percent; in 1998 only 29 of the State Council's 40 departments were retained; and finally in 2003, the State Council established the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Commerce as well as the State Food and Drug Administration.
 
(China.org.cn by Zhang Ming'ai, January 16, 2008)