The State's highest pricing authority unveiled another regulation
over the weekend streamlining the government's role in pricing
decisions.
It
states that public hearings should be held when pricing authorities
at all levels decide or readjust prices of goods and services
essential to daily life.
"The public's say in the process is useful in improving pricing
transparency," said the regulation by the
State Development Planning Commission (SDPC).
All pricing authorities should actively accept hearing
applications, organize the time and place of the hearing and take
the public's comments into consideration before making a decision,
the regulation states.
Entrusted by the Central Government, SDPC and its branches at the
provincial, prefecture and county level are authorized to supervise
pricing.
The new regulation is the latest move in a string of pricing reform
initiatives launched by the State to make its economy more
market-orientated.
The government was responsible for setting prices of all goods and
services during the years of the planned economy. But now most
commodities and services are priced by the market; the main mission
of pricing authorities is to supervise the pricing, not decide what
to charge.
The regulation stipulates that an expert committee should be
established under pricing authorities to examine the government's
pricing process and make the final cost decision or readjust the
costs of articles still under the macro control of the government.
The committee would have 30 days to do so and to make it public via
mass media.
SDPC has worked hard on the price reform.
It
recently announced a regulation requiring public hearings to be
held when some departments decide the prices of water, electricity
and natural gas.
Last week, SDPC made public two regulations to crack down on price
cheating and encourage the public's involvement in reporting
pricing irregularities.
(China
Daily December 24, 2001)