We formulated the Law to Combat Money Laundering on the basis of extensive surveys and studies and a review of actual experience in order to meet the requirements of the fight against money laundering in China and relevant international treaties. The Standing Committee revised the Partnership Enterprise Law to encourage independent innovation and risk investment, strengthen the integration of technology and capital and promote the growth of professional service organizations. The revised Banking Oversight and Management Law gives agencies responsible for overseeing the banking industry the power to carry out investigations and contains provisions stipulating the conditions and procedures for them to carry out such investigations and relevant legal obligations to strengthen oversight and management of the banking industry. The Decision on Revision of the Organic Law of the People's Courts requires that the clause that authorizes higher people's courts to rule on some cases carrying the death penalty be deleted, reserving that power for the Supreme People's Court alone. This will have a major role in ensuring fairness in the judicial system.

The Law on Corporate Income Tax is an important law that affects overall economic and social development. The objective for reform to introduce a unified tax code for enterprises was clearly defined at the Third Plenary Session of the Sixteenth Central Committee. Over 540 of you have submitted 16 bills on formulating a unified law on corporate income tax since the Second Session of the Tenth NPC. The current Standing Committee included formulation of the Law on Corporate Income Tax in the five-year plan for legislation and called on the relevant departments of the State Council to work hard on its formulation. The State Council submitted the proposed draft Law on Corporate Income Tax to the Standing Committee after conducting thorough surveys and studies and extensively soliciting opinions. There were three main changes incorporated in the draft: The first was to unify the income tax rate for domestic and foreign enterprises and standardize the deductible amount. The second was to set a lower tax rate and institute a preferential treatment policy for small enterprises and new- and high-technology enterprises. The third was to adopt a transition measure for enterprises that formerly enjoyed preferential tax status and make appropriate arrangements for special economic zones and the western region. The draft was conscientiously deliberated and revised at the Twenty-fifth Meeting of the Standing Committee, and the decision was made at the same meeting to submit it to this session for your deliberation and approval.

Formulation of the Law on Property Rights and the Law on Corporate Income Tax were two major events in China's legislative work and are two important items on the agenda for this session. Because of the wide concern in society as well as among you about these two laws, when we submitted the drafts of these laws and related documents to you for your deliberation and comments in January, we also organized the leaders of relevant organizations to report to you in different localities on their contents to prepare for deliberation at this session. The Standing Committee and the State Council revised these two proposed laws based on your opinions and the comments members of the Standing Committee made during deliberation and explained the two draft laws to this session. Thanks to your concerted efforts, we are confident that we can successfully formulate these two laws.

3. We continued to make legislative work more scientific and democratic and raise the quality of legislation.

First, in March of last year we released the entire text of the proposed Law on Labor Contracts to the public to solicit opinions from all sectors of society, based on the experience gained in releasing the entire text of the proposed Law on Property Rights to the public in 2005. There was an enthusiastic response throughout society to the release of the draft Law on Labor Contracts. We received nearly 200,000 comments on the draft law from different sectors of society, 65% of which came from ordinary workers, while the rest came from the standing committees of the people's congresses of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, from the standing committees of people's congresses of 49 large cities, as well as from 45 concerned central government departments and 45 large enterprises, and from numerous institutions of higher learning and people's organizations. We made an overall analysis and study of all the comments submitted, then picked out 11 fairly representative to discuss at forums. We carefully listened to your comments and those from concerned central government departments, employers, employees, experts and scholars and once again revised the draft law based on the submitted comments and suggestions. The employment issue is of great concern to the general public. The NPC Chairperson's Council decided in February of this year that the full text of the draft Employment Promotion Law that has been deliberated for the first time by the Standing Committee will soon be made available to the general public for comments. (More)