Beijing is speeding up its law-making process to strengthen controls over the business and financial sectors, with the country's first law on private firms due to be passed next year and several others scheduled for deliberation.
National People's Congress (NPC) finance and economics committee vice-chairman Li Yining said the legislation aimed to ensure the interests and rights of businesses and market participants would be more effectively protected. The NPC is the mainland's highest law-making body.
The Securities Law drafting committee chief also reiterated that foreigners would be shut out of A-share markets for the moment in the wake of Asia's financial turmoil, and that Beijing was in favour of a more controlled liberalisation policy.
'Beijing is concerned that foreigners will siphon off the money from the stock market once they are allowed to get in. They can stir-fry B shares and H shares, but definitely not A shares,' Mr Li said in Hong Kong yesterday after receiving a doctorate from the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong.
Next year, Beijing will pass a law that, for the first time, gave wholly-owned private enterprises legal backing for their interests and rights, reflecting their growing significance.
'The legislation is pivotal to the development of the private sector,' he said, adding that he had read first few drafts of the law.
Beijing had never given due recognition to its private sector as it did to the state sector until recently, when it realised the sector had become an economic force too big to be ignored.
