China reshuffles ministries in bid to streamline government

China announced plans Sunday to streamline government ministries, doing away with the powerful Railways Ministry and creating a super-agency to regulate the media and realigning other bureaucracies in a bid to boost efficiency.

The plan introduced to the rubber-stamp national legislature is being pushed by the newly installed Communist Party leadership and reflects its priorities to reduce waste and address quality of life issues for a more prosperous, demanding society.

Among the changes, the corruption-plagued Railways Ministry will be split, its regulatory responsibilities going to the Transport Ministry and its operations to a commercial entity. The food and drug agency will see a boost in authority to try to end the safety scandals that have been a source of public anger, and two censorship arms, one for broadcasters and one for print media, will be merged.

The restructuring, the seventh since China began market reforms 30 years ago, marks the latest periodic attempt to reduce government meddling in the economy and society. Despite the effort, the government’s role in the economy and the power of state companies have grown over the past decade, often to the detriment of private and foreign companies, which face a welter of industrial and other policies that have raised barriers to success.

This time, the streamlining plan includes guidelines to limit and better define the central government’s responsibilities, limiting its issuing of permits for projects and setting of standards.

“Departments of the State Council are now focusing too much on micro issues. We should attend to our duties and must not meddle in what is not in our business,” Ma Kai, secretary-general of the State Council, or Cabinet, told the legislators. He said that overlapping government functions has often led to buck-passing.

Underscoring the government’s determination is the abolishing of the Railways Ministry. With deep ties to the military, the ministry has resisted previous rounds of reform and has continued to serve as both regulator and operator. Under the new plan, operations will be spun off into a newly created China Railway Corporation, responsible for building railways and managing freight and passenger services. Safety, quality and other regulatory standards will be the purview of a state railway administration under the Ministry of Transport.