China's authorities have cut through almost half of the red tape restrictions faced by entrepreneurs in establishing and operating businesses, as the government attempts to fight corruption and improve transparency.

The State Council's administrative examination and approval system reform group announced on Tuesday that since 2002, the 68 government departments had rescinded or amended 1,806 of their 3,605 administrative approval items, accounting for 50.1 percent of the total.

Provincial-level governments had also cancelled more than half of their items, the group said, citing Zhejiang government, which slashed the number of approval items from 3,251 to 630 in five years, and Chongqing, which cancelled 312 items last year alone.

An official with the reform group said it was trying to clean up the the country's over-regulated administrative approval system, which had led to unnecessary government interventions in small businesses.

He cited the example of a city government in Henan Province that established a "steamed bread office", which required the registration of every person in the city who wanted to make and sell steamed bread.

Procedures had also become over complicated, he said, pointing to the story of a south China farmer who took two years to acquire the 270 official seals needed to establish a poultry farm, by which time he found the business was no longer viable.

The lack of transparency and inadequate supervision of administrative authority had resulted in many corruption cases, said the official. Mu Suixin, the former mayor of Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, and vice-mayor Ma Xiangdong, abused their approval powers in land allocation by taking bribes. Mu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2001, while Ma was sentenced to death and executed in December 2000.

Some local governments were improving transparency, such as the municipal government of Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, which had set up an on-line system to deal with 31 administrative approval items. This was more convenient for applicants and prevented nepotism and corruption.

The municipal government of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, had opened a one-stop administrative approval hall, where leading officials worked on processing administrative approval procedures within 15 days.

Professor Fan Chongyi, of the China University of Political Science and Law said, "It's a self-reform of China's government.

It's a major measure to improve the socialist market economy, fight corruption and build clean and efficient government."

Source: Xinhua