China sets up economic reforms coordination mechanism

China's State Council, the country's cabinet, approved the establishment of a coordination mechanism comprising 35 government agencies for economic reforms over the weekend, a move that indicates the new administration's determination to resolve significant issues during these reforms.

The new coordination mechanism will focus on seven missions including the resolving of major issues in national economic reforms, and researching economic reform plans, the State Council said in a statement on its website.

Under the system, any major issues during economic reforms should be submitted to the State Council, according to the statement.

The new coordination group will be led by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). the country's top economic planner.

Xu Shaoshi, the head of the NDRC, will be one of the main organizers for these conferences.

Due to increasing interaction between different ministries and commissions during economic reforms, "the new mechanism could create supervisory coordination to push forward execution of reforms," Xu Hongcai, director of the Department of Information under the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a government think tank, told the Global Times Sunday.

Xu said the decision shows the government's resolution to address issues in the reforms.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held an executive meeting of the State Council on May 6, setting targets for reforms in nine sectors, including taxation, finance, pricing system, and agriculture.

Xu said the new coordination mechanism is the latest step to offer a systematic guarantee for deep reforms in these sectors.

The inter-ministry coordination system followed the launch of a new financial coordination group led by the central bank last month and a coordination mechanism led by the Ministry of Agriculture in July.

There were also debates among academic circles during the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress this March about whether to set up a "super-ministry" or a single regulatory body to push forward economic reforms in the country.

"Currently the three coordination groups are more realistic than a single super-ministry to monitor reforms in China," Xu said.

However, Song Wucheng, a research fellow of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research at the NDRC, told the Global Times Sunday that "the new coordination mechanism is more like an interim system."

With the upcoming Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in November, considered to be an important meeting for major national reform plans, "the new system will be helpful in pushing forward reforms initiated during the meeting," Niu Li, director of the Macroeconomic Research Institute with the State Information Center, was quoted by Reuters as saying.