State Council Releases Legislative Plan for 2017

The State Council on Monday released its legislative plan for 2017 (2017 Plan). Because of this Blog’s focus, this post will only take a look at those projects in the 2017 Plan that will require the approval of the National People’s Congress (NPC) or its Standing Committee (NPCSC)—that is, proposed new laws or revisions of existing laws. For other projects (which concern administrative regulations), please refer to the linked plan itself.

Structure of the 2017 Plan

We reviewed the four previous legislative plans released by the current State Council from 2013 to 2016 (links in that order), and found that the overall structure of the 2017 Plan is similar to theirs, though with one notable exception.

The plans all start with several paragraphs of guiding principles for each year’s legislative work. Then come the legislative projects, which are grouped into sections based on importance and/or ripeness. Last year’s legislative plan, for instance, contains the following sections:

1. Projects urgently needed for comprehensively deepening reform (Deepening-Reform projects; section first added in 2015);
2. Projects to be completed within the year (Within-the-Year projects);
3. Preparatory projects [预备项目];
4. Research projects [研究项目].

While the 2017 Plan includes the first two sections, the last two are conspicuously missing. Because the General Office of the State Council indicates that the released 2017 Plan is only an abridged version (as are all previous plans), the full version might contain the two missing sections. Still, this doesn’t explain the change of practice this year.

Historical Completion Rates

We then calculated the completion rates of projects in the first two sections over the years. The results are shown in the chart below. A project is deemed completed if it was submitted to the NPCSC within the target year.

Year	Within-the-Year Projects		Deepening-Reform Projects
	# Completed/ # Planned	Completion Rate	# Completed/ # Planned	Completion Rate
2013	6/16	37.5%	—	—
2014	4/9	44.4%	—	—
2015	4/11	36.4%	1/8	12.5%
2016	5/9	55.6%	1/9	11.1%
Average	43.5%		11.8%

The completion rates of With-the-Year projects fluctuate around 40%, whereas each year, just over 10% of Deepening-Reform Projects are completed—which is quite disappointing, to say the least. Keep in mind, however, that these numbers only apply to projects relating to national laws in the legislative plans.

The 2017 Plan schedules eight Deepening-Reform projects and only three With-the-Year projects. We might again see similar completion rates this year, but there are reasons to suspect higher ones, especially for Deepening-Reform projects (see next section).

Deepening-Reform Projects

The eight projects are listed below, together with relevant information. In general, draft legislative bills are submitted to the NPCSC approximately one year after they had been released for public comments by the State Council’s Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA).

Projects	Drafters	In Previous Plans? *	Status	Probability of Completion
Tax Collection Administration Law (Revision)	State Administration of Taxation, Ministry of Finance	2013–2016	Comments solicited on Jan. 5, 2015	Moderate
Standardization Law (Revision)	Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine	2014–2016	Submitted to NPCSC on Feb. 22, 2017	Completed
Community Correction Law	Ministry of Justice	2013–2016	Comments solicited on Dec. 1, 2016	High***
Export Control Law	Ministry of Commerce	2016	Unclear	Low to moderate
Tobacco Leaf Tax Law	Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation	2016	Comments solicited on Oct. 17, 2016**	High***
Vessel Tonnage Tax Law	Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Customs	2016	Comments solicited on Oct. 17, 2016**	High***
Atomic Energy Law	State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry National Defense	2015, 2016	Unclear	Low to moderate
Encryption Law	State Encryption Administration	2015, 2016	Unclear	Low to moderate

* Regardless of sections
** Not by the OLA, but by the State Administration of Taxation
*** Scheduled for 2017 by the NPCSC’s work report

With-the-Year Projects

The three projects are listed below, together with relevant information. In general, draft legislative bills are submitted to the NPCSC approximately one year after they had been released for public comments by the OLA.

Projects	Drafters	In Previous Plans? *	Status	Probability of Completion
Patent Law (Revision)	State Intellectual Property Office	2013–2016	Comments solicited on Dec. 2, 2015	Moderate
Maritime Traffic Safety Law (Revision)	Ministry of Transport	2013­–2016	Comments solicited on Feb. 14, 2017	Moderate to high
Public Libraries Law	Ministry of Culture	2013–2016	Comments solicited on Dec. 9, 2015	High**

* Regardless of sections
** Scheduled for 2017 by the NPCSC’s work report

Deprioritized Projects

The following five projects were listed in the State Council’s 2016 legislative plan as either Deepening-Reform or Within-the-Year projects, but weren’t included in the 2017 Plan. They weren’t completed in 2016 either.

1. Electricity Law (Revision)
   National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration
2. Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures Law, Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises Law, Chinese-Foreign Contractual Joint Ventures Law, and Taiwan Compatriots’ Investments Protection Law (Revision)
   Ministry of Commerce, Taiwan Affairs Office
3. Administrative Reconsideration Law (Revision)
   Office of Legislative Affairs
4. Metrological Law (Revision)
   Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
5. Officers in Active Service Law (Revision)
   Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission (CMC)

For the first four projects, we won’t venture a guess as to why there were excluded from the 2017 Plan—they might still be either preparatory or research projects had these two sections been published. We nonetheless believe that the last project, revising the Officers in Active Service Law, was dropped because of the ongoing reform of the military personnel system, which was authorized by the NPCSC in last December (and which we previously covered here and here).

Projects Assigned to State Council by NPCSC’s Legislative Plan

Lastly, in this section we take a look at the State Council’s progress in completing the projects assigned to it by the 12^th NPCSC Legislative Plan.

The following projects are either assigned to the State Council alone or jointly with another body. Underlined projects are mentioned by the 2017 Plan. For the current statuses (or the lack thereof) of the following projects, please refer to our annotated versions of the 12^th NPCSC Legislative Plan (accessible from Blog’s sidebar).

Category I: Projects of first-tier priority

1. Patent Law (Revision)
2. Copyright Law (Revision)
3. Administrative Reconsideration Law (Revision)
4. Administrative Supervision Law (Revision)—responsibility likely transferred to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission
5. Vocational Education Law (Revision)
6. Cultural Industry Promotion Law
7. Public Libraries Law
8. Land Management Law (Revision)
9. Civil Air Defense Law (Revision)—jointly with the CMC
10. Value-Added Tax Law
11. Resource Tax Law
12. Real Estate Tax Law—jointly with the NPCSC Budgetary Affairs Commission
13. Tariff Law
14. Vessel Tonnage Tax Law
15. Farmland Occupancy Tax Law
16. Tax Collection Administration Law (Revision)
17. Grain Law
18. Atomic Energy Law
19. Telecommunications Law
20. Forestry Law (Revision)
21. Railway Law (Revision)
22. Mine Safety Law (Revision)

Category II: Projects of second-tier priority

1. Basic Ocean Law
2. Urban Residents’ Committee Organic Law (Revision)
3. Commercial Banks Law (Revision)
4. Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures Law, Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises Law, and Chinese-Foreign Contractual Joint Ventures Law (Revision)
5. Officers in Active Service Law (Revision)—jointly with the CMC
6. Community Correction Law
7. Detention Center Law
8. Maritime Traffic Safety Law (Revision)
9. Cultural Relics Protection Law (Revision)
10. Drug Administration Law (Revision)
11. Development Planning Law
12. People’s Bank of China Law (Revision)
13. Mineral Resources Law (Revision)
14. Energy Law
15. Infrastructure and Public Utilities Franchises Law
16. Grassland Law (Revision)
17. Aviation Law—jointly with the CMC

In sum, the State Council is individually responsible for drafting 55 projects in the 12^th NPCSC Legislative Plan. To date, it has submitted 21 to the NPCSC and scheduled seven for 2017, leaving (most of) the rest 27 projects unlikely to be completed within the 12^th NPCSC’s term.

The NPCSC is expected to release its own legislative plan for 2017 in late April.