China to promote private businesses

The State Council, or China's cabinet, released new regulations on Thursday that will benefit the country's privately-owned businesses in an effort to further promote their role in boosting economic growth and employment.
The "Regulations on Individual Businesses," which will become effective on November 1, were approved by the State Council on March 30 and signed by Premier Wen Jiabao on April 16.
A set of previous regulations, titled "Interim Regulations on the Administration of Urban and Rural Individual Industrial and Commercial Households" and passed in August 1987, will be abolished on the same day as the implementation of the new regulations.
The new regulations aim to protect the interests of individual citizens who have lawfully registered and been approved to engage in industrial or commercial operations within the range permitted by law, as well as support the healthy development of the sector, said the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
The new regulations will expand the scope of individual businesses to all industries except those prohibited by the country's laws and regulations.
Limitations on the number of employees will be scrapped. The current interim regulations require individual businesses to have no more than two assistants.
"Individual businesses can recruit employees according to their needs," the new regulations said.
Administrative fees will also be scrapped after the new regulations take effects.
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