CCTV:

The Private Sector Promotion Law has drawn significant public attention given its broad scope. Regarding this comprehensive piece of legislation, how did the drafting body ensure the following aspects during drafting process: fully aligning with the central authorities' principles and policies; proactively addressing public concerns; and establishing its status as a foundational law? Thank you.

Wang Zhenjiang:

Thank you for your question. I'll take this one. This is an extremely important question, and has been a key focus for our task force since day one. The Private Sector Promotion Law, serving as China's first fundamental law specifically designated for promoting the development of the private sector, carries significant political weight, policy importance and professional rigor. In drafting this law, the task force focused on the following key priorities:

First, we must implement the principles and policies made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on the private sector in a complete, accurate and comprehensive manner. Since the reform and opening up, and especially since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have put forward a series of principles and policies promoting the development of the private sector. Practice has proven that these policies have provided important guarantees and fundamental guidelines for ensuring the sustained, healthy and high-quality development of China's private sector. It is therefore necessary to codify them into legal systems to better allow the rule of law to play its role in consolidating foundations, ensuring stable expectations and delivering long-term benefits. Therefore, the legislation must codify the central authorities' major principles, policies and propositions regarding the private sector, notably unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector, and unswervingly encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public sector, as well as the private sector's status and significance. Transforming these policies into binding legal requirements is pivotal to better safeguarding the private sector's fundamental and political direction for development. During the drafting process, the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee was held, which made new arrangements for leveraging the role of private enterprises in technological innovation. In line with the guiding principles of the plenary session, we made such provisions in the law as supporting private economic organizations in participating in national sci-tech research projects, supporting qualified private entities to lead and undertake major national technological research tasks, and granting private enterprises access to major national scientific research infrastructure. The goal is to allow the private sector to play a greater role in advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Second, we have adhered to open-door legislation, pooling wisdom and building consensus. Promoting the private sector involves a wide range of areas. Which issues should be addressed now through legislation, which measures should be written into law and which should be clarified in subsequent supporting regulations — all these need to be decided after we listen to the views and gathered the ideas of all parties concerned. Therefore, in the drafting process, we always adhered to open-door legislation to pool wisdom. We set up a special working group composed of 17 relevant departments and institutions under the central authorities to jointly study and draft the law. An important consideration behind this was to collect opinions widely so that good suggestions from all sides could be timely and fully reflected and embodied in the draft law. As soon as the working group was established, we held a symposium to listen to the opinions and suggestions of private enterprises. Next, we entrusted authoritative legal research institutions, such as the China Law Society and the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to organize multiple expert conferences to conduct in-depth discussions on issues involving legislation. At the same time, department heads of the working group led teams to conduct field investigations, visiting and listening to the opinions of deputies to people's congresses, members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and representatives of private enterprises. During the drafting and reviewing by the State Council and deliberation by the NPC Standing Committee, we solicited public opinions twice on the draft law, and carefully analyzed and took on board the opinions and suggestions from all sides. After repeated research and discussions, we ultimately focused on fair competition, investment and financing promotion, scientific and technological innovation, standardized operation, service guarantees, and the protection of rights and interests. These are widely seen as the most prominent issues facing the private sector in its current development stage. The framework and main contents of the law are also based on these issues. It can be said that the process of formulating the Private Sector Promotion Law itself is a process of pooling wisdom and building consensus, as well as a vivid practice of making laws in a well-conceived, democratic, and law-based manner, and implementing whole-process people's democracy.

Third, based on the positioning of fundamental law, we have taken coordinated action to define the foundational institutional frameworks while leaving appropriate space for evolution in the future. Many provisions in the Private Sector Promotion Law are highly targeted, such as regulations on "pay-when-paid" clauses and administrative law enforcement. The provisions are concise and informative, and will have extraordinary significance if fully implemented. Of course, as a fundamental law, it is not necessarily better to be more detailed. As objective practice evolves quickly, overly detailed provisions can sometimes constrain the development of practice. Therefore, in the legislative process, we always adhered to overall planning for both the present and the long term. For major issues that need to be resolved through legislation at present, we focused on clarifying the main mechanisms and measures, foundational institutional frameworks, and main legal requirements, while leaving space for future practical developments. As stipulated in the law, relevant departments of the State Council should coordinate the research and formulation of policies and measures to promote private investment, while governments at all levels and their relevant departments should establish mechanisms for government-enterprise communication. This not only clarifies the establishment of the mechanisms but also leaves room for the next step to introduce supporting measures and refine implementation measures based on actual conditions. In addition, there is another category of major issues, which has been reflected by various parties as being prominent in practice and requiring significant efforts to resolve, which includes illegal cross-regional enforcement and administrative and criminal interference in economic disputes. For this type of issues, the law explicitly makes prohibitive provisions, stating the principles and bottom lines of the law, and enhancing the binding force. The implementation of these provisions will play an important role in resolving disputes and protecting the lawful rights and interests of the private sector in accordance with the law.

That is all from me on this question. Thank you.