On May 14, 2025, the State Council of China announced the Legislative Working Plan 2025 of the State Council (hereinafter referred to as “the Working Plan”) to the public.
It is a routine activity of the State Council regarding the country’s legislative work, and for this year’s Woking Plan, the principles for drafting the Working Plan, meaning how to determine and select which laws, regulations or provisions are required for further action, and what actions will it be (e.g.: revision, formulation or abolishing etc.), are explained as:
· New laws and regulations that need to be drafted for the comprehensive deepening of reform shall be formulated in a timely manner.
· For matters where the legislative conditions are not yet mature and require pioneering trials and exploration to accumulate experience, authorization decisions or reform decisions should be made in a timely manner.
· For the current laws and regulations that do not meet the requirements of reform and development, they should be revised and improved in a timely manner or abolished.
· For matters where the relevant reform decisions have been clearly defined and require corresponding amendments to multiple laws and regulations, a one-package approach (where all such laws and regulations are accumulatively being revised at the same time) of law revision can be adopted to handle them all at once.
· For institutional innovation measures that need to be advanced step by step, it is necessary to implement the relevant reform decisions of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council, and promptly arrange and promote the relevant legislative and legislative revision work.
For the Working Plan 2025 specifically, it emphasizes a total of 16 laws whose drafts shall be submitted for the review of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), and 30 administrative laws and regulations that are expected to be formulated or revised in the year of 2025. For principles or conditions on why such items are chosen to be listed in the Working Plan, the document stated that laws or regulations with following functions or conditions are prioritized to be covered into Working Plan:
· Those can promote high-quality development and build a high-level socialist market economy system
· Those will strengthen the government's own construction and further promote law-based administration
· Those that implement the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and will support to build the country into a cultural power
· Those can enhance people's well-being and improve the quality of people's lives
· Those that promote green development and facilitate harmonious coexistence between humans and nature
· Those can improve the legal system for national security and build a higher-level peaceful China
· Those shall strengthen the construction of foreign-related rule of law and improve the foreign-related legal and regulatory system
For foreign stakeholders, it is advised to notice that multiple legislative works of a couple of dozens of laws and regulations are also mentioned that may have some legislative actions (revision or drafting etc.) in the Working Plan but may not be considered as important as those in the specific list. And it is suggested to check the full list of the Working Plan and make regulatory review if any item shall potentially pose some compliance change to their current business system, services and products.
The full text of the Working Plan is available (in Chinese) via official link:
https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202505/content_7023698.htm
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