The Ministry of Internal Trade is till drafting the Executive Methods for Management Mechanism Transformation of State-Owned Commercial Enterprises and has invalidated 73 documents which contradict the new regulations. In the draft, the ministry makes detailed suggestions about how to invigorate enterprises and develop channels for better market circulation. Fresh innovations have also been included in the document. For example, Sino-foreign joint retail commercial enterprises, forbidden in the past, will now be allowed, growing from initial 11 cities. Price ceiling for consumer goods will be lifted and grain trade between provinces will no longer be restricted by state distribution plans.

The State Taxation Administration has put forward 10 measures to speed up reform of the taxation system. The number of tax items will be reduced. Reforms of the tax flow, company income tax and individual income tax will be accelerated. Adjustments to tax rates and taxable items will enable enterprise to carry a fair share of the tax burden and promote fair play. The administration will also establish new mechanisms controlling individual income tax and accelerating the passage of legislation concerning the levying of taxes and administration of the tax system.

The Ministry of Foreign trade and Economic Cooperation is working out detailed rules for the implementation of the new regulations. The approval process granting enterprises autonomy in the conduct of foreign trade is expected to be shortened. Firms conducting foreign trade will be given more autonomy by loosening planning restrictions and quotas, reducing government controls and licensing requirements, and releasing limits on the scope of business, as well as in other ways.

Much of the content of the new regulations concerns employment. The Ministry of Labor regards the rules as a powerful stimulus to employment system reform and already completed plans for further reform in late July. It is also reviewing its previous documents.

Local governments are also moving quickly. In Jilin Province, 91 departments under the provincial government have delegated 452 kinds of power to enterprises at the prefectural and municipal levels. The provincial government requires various departments to delegate power to enterprises and to take no measures inhibiting enterprises from exercising their rights.

According to Gao Shangquan, the functions and form of government control over economic matters should be changed from that of direct control over enterprise production and business activities into a system of macro-economic management based on indirect regulation and control. The main functions of government control over the economy are as follows :

1. Preserving overall balance, defining relative ties in the economic structure, curbing inflation and guarding against major market fluctuations.
2. Formulating industrial policy, making timely readjustments in accordance with market changed, issuing information about global and domestic market demands, guiding enterprises to adjust product mix and promoting a rational economic structure.
3. Formulating financial and monetary policies as well as import and export programs in accordance with national industrial policy and using such economic levers as interest rates, tax rates and foreign exchange rates in a coordinated manner to achieve the state's economic development goals and to realize a reasonable and equitable distribution of income.
4. Enacting laws and regulations for standardizing the conduct of investors and managers as well as the market and distribution order so as to ensure the sustained, steady and coordinated development of the national economy.

To transform government handling of the economy, the departments in charge of enterprises must cast aside the idea that enterprises are their underlings, while such outmoded work methods such as examination, appraisal and acceptance should be discarded as well. All unnecessary administrative interference should end and administrative involvement in product assessment must be prevented in order to reduce enterprise burdens.