China's central government recently committed itself to gradually carrying out the reform of the country's residence permit system in order to better manage the large floating population that inhabits many of China's large cities.

The State Council, the equivalent of China's cabinet, recently approved a policy document that outlined the governments intention to push ahead and deepen a series of reforms to the country's economic system in 2010. The document was drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Among ten other important reforms, the document committed the central government to the goal of improving the registration system that applies to the large transient populations that live in many of China's urban centers. The document also stated that the central government plans to gradually establish a residence permit system across the country.

This is the first time that the State Council has referred to the establishment of such a system in its policy documents.

The document also mentioned plans to accelerate the relaxation of household registration policies in small-and-medium sized cities and counties.

The new system is part of efforts to reform China's existing household registration system - also known as the hukou system, which strictly divides the population into rural and non-rural residents.

In early March, before the country's top legislative meeting, the EO authored and published a joint editorial along with twelve other Chinese newspapers, calling on representatives to the NPC and CPPCC to abolish the existing system.

Aside from advocating reform of the household registration system, the State Council document also encourages the development of the private sector.

According to the document, governments at all levels should further eliminate systemic obstacles to private capital investment and urge state-owned enterprises to retreat from competitive sectors, and in this way expand the market share of private sector actors.

In addition, the document also commits to furthering reform of the resource tax system and gradually introducing real estate tax reform as well as furthering research into a environmental tax.

Links and Sources:
The State Council:《关于2010年深化经济体制改革重点工作的意见 (Chinese)

This article was edited by Paul Pennay