Protection of private business promoted
Senior legislators yesterday began discussing a party proposal to extend the country's constitution to better protect private businesses as the mainland develops its market economy.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress met in a special session to examine the proposal by the policy-making Central Committee.
The proposed amendment may involve acknowledging the right to private property to develop alongside public ownership and enshrine the theories of the socialist market economy propounded by the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping.
The proposal is scheduled to be accepted at the two-day meeting so the extensions can be put forward as a bill at the meeting of the National People's Congress which begins on March 5 and then be approved with the necessary two-thirds majority during that session.
Tian Jiyun, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee, briefed lawmakers on the proposal at yesterday's meeting, Xinhua said. 'The need for the amendment stems from a decision made at the 15th Party Congress in September 1997,' Mr Tian said.
The Party Congress gave the go-ahead for diverse types of ownership and 'held high the banner of Deng theory'.
The proposed amendment has been passed to party committees at provincial level, ministries and commissions, the General Political Department of the Central Military Commission and members and alternate members of the Central Committee for Consultation.
