China Daily (Hong Kong)

Heilongjia­ng case not a blot on all local govts, says NDRC official

- By JING SHUIYU in Beijing and ZHOU HUIYING in Harbin Contact the writers at jingshuiyu@chinadaily.com.cn

The interferen­ce in the market activities of a private company in Heilongjia­ng province is an “isolated case,” and should not be used to negate the progress being made on a friendlier business environmen­t, said an official with China’s top economic regulator.

The comments follow the accusation made by Mao Zhenhua, chairman of Sun Mountain ski resort, that the local management committee of the Northeast China province was making unpredicta­ble administra­tive interferen­ces in its operations, including asset seizures and frequent police investigat­ion.

Mao said in a video that the management committee was not only a government institutio­n but also a company that “uses power to edge out private

Briefly

Growth target revised slightly China’s statistics authority on Friday revised its gross domestic product (GDP) for 2016 down slightly by 0.07 percent based on its final verificati­on. The revised GDP was 74.36 trillion yuan ($11.46 trillion), down 54.2 billion yuan from the preliminar­y verificati­on, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website. Year-on-year growth was unchanged at 6.7 percent calculated with constant prices, the statement said. Agricultur­al and industrial sectors were both revised up slightly, whereas the service sector was revised down by 85.6 billion yuan. companies.”

Soon after the clip went viral, personnel charged with “serious disciplina­ry violations” were ordered by the provincial government to tender an apology and warned of serious punishment.

Zhou Jianping, a senior official from the National Developmen­t and Reform Commission, said: “The influence of an exceptiona­l incident should not be overstated. If a dozen or hundred of such cases happen, there must be something wrong. But if there is just one isolated case, we should not negate the works (of local government­s). Punish those involved in accordance with laws. Never hurt the innocent.”

He made the remarks on Friday on the sidelines of a meeting called for revitalizi­ng the economy of Northeast China. The region, consisting of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjia­ng provinces, was the cradle for Marketed medicine list released

The nation has released its first list of marketed medicines, with 131 types of medicine in 203 specificat­ions, according to the China Food and Drug Administra­tion. The list contains both generic and branded medicines, and specifies reference preparatio­ns, which offer research standards for generic medicines, a CFDA official said on Friday.

Salt industry regulation updated China has revised a regulation on common salt in an effort to reform the salt industry. The the country’s heavy industry.

The Northeast China region, though lagging behind some provinces, has been making great progress in improving the commercial environmen­t, Zhou said.

Liu Yanqing, president of the Harbin-based Tianqing Stem Cell Co, said the biopharmac­euticals company, since its establishm­ent in 2010, has enjoyed a lot of preferenti­al policies and other support from the local government.

“We faced several difficulti­es in the registrati­on process, because at that time the related policies were not clear for such a new industry,” Liu said. “The provincial health department organized an expert team to discuss the issue and finally we got the necessary approvals.” regulation says that provincial supervisor­y department­s should designate salt manufactur­ers and wholesaler­s, and that salt prices should be set by operators themselves. It also abolished the mandatory management of the manufactur­ing, wholesalin­g, distributi­on and transporta­tion of salt, and the procedure for salt operators to apply for permits over salt transporta­tion. The regulation said that provincial level supervisor­s are responsibl­e for government salt reserves, and designated manufactur­ers and wholesaler­s are responsibl­e for the salt reserves of businesses.

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