China.org.cn | December 9, 2024
Beijing Youth Daily:
Arbitrary fees imposed on enterprises not only increase their burden but also harm the business environment. What steps will be taken to address the issue of illegal charges on enterprises, in order to alleviate their burden while also protecting their legal rights and interests? Thank you.
Luo Wen:
Thank you. I will answer this question. Recently, the SAMR has intensified its enforcement efforts against illegal charges on businesses, aiming to genuinely help alleviate the burden on enterprises.
First, we will resolutely prohibit the illegal establishment of fee items. We will call on government departments, affiliated units and industry associations to ensure that policy documents related to fees have a legal basis. Any documents found to lack legal justification during inspections will be promptly revised or abolished. For charging entities like financial institutions, and utilities such as water, electricity, gas and heating, we will enhance inspections and random checks to firmly address issues such as double charging and compulsory fees. We will improve the directory of all enterprise-related fees, and fully disclose fee items, bases and standards. Any charges not included in the directory will be strictly prohibited.
Second, we will increase punishments for arbitrary charging practices. For administrative agencies, public institutions and social organizations with the function of public affairs management, and organizations with dominant positions in specific fields, we will comprehensively employ market regulation, industry regulation and credit supervision to strengthen penalties for such behaviors and make public major cases that have garnered strong social response. We will enhance the publicity and interpretation of typical cases, clarifying laws and regulations through these examples, helping fee-paying enterprises to understand fee policies while ensuring charging entities adhere to policy boundaries, thus fully utilizing social supervision. We will strengthen coordination of administrative enforcement of law and discipline, and promptly transfer evidence of disciplinary offences according to procedures.
Third, we will strengthen the legal safeguards for regulating enterprise-related fees. Taking the revision of the Price Law as an opportunity, we will clarify the legal requirements related to fee management for state organs and public institutions. We will promote the formulation of the Measures for Handling Irregular Charges on Enterprises, detailing the standards for identifying such violations and increasing administrative penalties. We will expedite revisions and improvements to the enforcement and compliance guidelines for enterprise-related fees across various sectors, solidifying the legal foundation for regulating fees. Additionally, we will enhance the implementation of the Compliance Guidelines for Charging Behaviors of Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce to further regulate the charging practices of social organizations and optimize the business environment.
Fourth, we will improve the long-term regulatory mechanism for enterprise-related fees. We will address arbitrary charging issues at the source, exploring the establishment of a compliance review system for fee-related policy documents. We will enhance the scrutiny of these documents to effectively address issues that policies may impose additional payment obligations on enterprises and increase their burden. We will improve the regular mechanism for collecting evidence of such issues and set up monitoring points for enterprise-related fees, fully leveraging their role as the "outpost" in combating arbitrary charges. At the same time, we will work out innovative regulatory methods, and improve approaches such as reminders, enforcement orders, consultations and supervisory directives to ensure that arbitrary charging issues are adequately rectified.
That is all from me. Thank you.