In the first half of 2014, the commerce departments of China deeply implemented the essence of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee and the Government Work Report, and together with members of the national ministerial joint meeting on standardizing the market economy, vigorously standardized the market order and created a market environment of fair competition. Great progress has been made in every respect.
1. The order of TV shopping was overhauled to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and the China Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Commerce launched a nationwide special project to reorganize TV shopping for a half year. With careful organization and steady progress, all regions and local departments strengthened monitoring and supervision, and intensified investigation of cases. Related departments conducted real-time monitoring on more than 1,500 TV channels in 31 provinces and 332 prefecture-level cities. Over 50,000 enforcement personnel were dispatched, 691 cases that violated laws and rules were dealt with, and 13suspects were arrested.And16 illegal TV shopping channels were closed, 265 websites violating laws and rules were punished and 7,803 advertisements breaking laws and rules were forbidden. After the special project, the order of TV shopping was obviously improved. According to the monitoring of related departments, the number of illegal TV shopping advertisements was reduced from more than 25,000 per month to about 4,000 per month, down 84%. At the same time, departments of commerce and press, publication, radio, film and television sped up formulation of rules and regulations, and established and improved related industrial standards.
2. Regional blockades and trade monopoly were broken to maintain the unified opening and orderly competition of the national market. Twelve departments including the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration of Taxation issued a work plan to break regional blockades and trade monopoly, and launched a special project to solve the prominent problems like excluding or limiting competitions by abusing administrative power and financing difficulties of private enterprises. Five departments including the Ministry of Commerce and the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council jointly cleared a series of normative documents involving regional blockades. By the end of June 2014, about 235,721 documents including government regulations and normative documents were investigated by the governments of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, among which 476 regulations and documents involving regional blockades were amended, abolished or announced invalid. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce required local commercial departments to forbid abuse of administrative power to eliminate and limit competitions. In the first half of 2014, 128 cases of limiting competitions of public enterprises and other operators that have monopolized positions were dealt with. The Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Commerce strengthened administration on city distribution and transportation as well as vehicle passing, so as to provide a convenient and efficient transportation environment to city distribution vehicles to transport nonlocal products in or local products out. The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation cleared preferential tax policies, standardized charges to enterprises and optimized the follow-up management of trans-regional enterprises to pay corporate income tax on a consolidated basis. The People’s Bank of China urged and guided financial institutions to innovate financial products and strengthened financing supports to micro and small enterprises. The China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission pushed with the marketization of bank service prices, standardized the charges for bank services, actively promoted the marketization reform of the acquisition and reorganization of capital market, and strongly encouraged private capital to enter into financial industry.
3. Deals between retailers and suppliers were standardized to maintain fair dealing in the market. In the first half year, the Ministry of Commerce strengthened the daily supervision on the deals between retailers and suppliers, optimized work mechanism, and made cooperation between departments close. The ministry not only dealt with illegal behaviors, but also strengthened system and standards construction to enhance supervision efficiency and ensure the implementation of the work. The Administration Regulations on Fair Dealing Between Dealers and Suppliers (Draft) was completed. The cross-department coordination mechanism and fast delivery system of complaints were established in Beijing, Shanxi, Hebei and Yunnan, strengthening the communication between departments of commerce, prices, public security, industry and commerce and taxation, and enhancing the coordination ability of joint inspection. The information notification system to standardize retailer-supplier relations and messengers system were established in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia to strengthen communication and coordination between departments, provinces, municipalities and counties. Special inspections were launched in Liaoning, Hubei, Xinjiang and Tibet targeting at deals between retailers and suppliers, to investigate and treat illegal charges of retailers. Model texts of contract were generalized in Beijing, Shanxi and Xinjiang, electronic clearing was launched, checking and settlement of accounts were simplified, and default of payment for goods was reduced. In Shanxi, the defaults of payment for goods of retail enterprises were down 90% compared with that before the clearance.
Besides, members of the national ministerial joint meeting on standardizing the market economy also launched special projects in finance and taxation, culture, health care, mineral resources, tobacco, engineering construction, tourism and refined oil products, punishing a batch of illegal business operators, dealing with a lot of major cases, clearing the market environment and maintaining the order of the market economy.