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Beijing representative offices of local governments prepare toretreat by efwegbe erergeer
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Beijing representative offices of local governments prepare toretreat |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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Nation, page 12, issue 465, April 20, 2010 Translated by Tang Xiangyang Original article: [ Chinese ] Four months ago, the central government announced that all Beijinggovernment representative offices of or below county-level, were tobe eliminated. However, no further instructions followed theannouncement. Now, the order is beginning to take shape. On April 1, the State Council held a video conference to discussthe ordering of representative offices from the capital.
Ma Kai,general secretary of the State Council, said local governments wereprohibited from retaining their Beijing representative offices andthe employees of such offices should be dismissed. "[The time to exit] finally came," according to the head of theBeijing representative office of one small county in Hubei Provincewho'll we refer to as "Zhang Chengxiang," although that is not hisreal name. Hubei has already released a project plan called Eliminating Beijing Representative Offices of Local Governments (Hubei exit project); it sets a timetable for the exit of 54 ofits 71 Beijing representative offices. The representative officesof the province itself, its capital city Wuhan and anothertwelve cities and three counties directly under the control of theprovincial government, will remain. Before the publication of the list, many fought to retain afoothold; the offices who failed to get permission to stay are nowdealing with the tasks of dismissing their current employees andselling-off their assets.
Beijing Representative Offices Before the list was released, Zhang Chengxiang was required by thegovernment of his county to try to retain his office by lobbyinghigher level decision-makers in Beijing. His county also tried tolobby the provincial government. Zhang invited the head of a higher-level representative office todinner. At the dinner, the latter promised to "consider" retainingZhang's office; however, two days later Zhang was told to preparehis office for exit.
"Our town is assisted [by some ministries] and some of our projectsare still being worked on. Can you please make an exception?" Zhangasked on the phone. The answer was no. Zhang Chengxiang then summoned all of his employees and releasedthe news that their office was to be eliminated.
"It was a quiet meeting, no one spoke. They were all mulling overtheir possible fate," Zhang said. Compared with county-level representative offices, city-leveloffices fared much better, the Hubei provincial government hasdecided to retain all of them. One of the reasons these municipal offices are being allowed toremain is that the government still needs them to deal with localresidents who travel to Beijing to petition the central governmentabout perceived injustices, according to a city-level official.
Thetask of dealing with petitioners is often euphemistically referredto as "maintaining social stability" or (w i w ng ngzu ) in Chinese. Li Jieyun, a pseudonym for the head of the Beijing representativeoffice of a city in Hebei, revealed that most of the pressure hefaced on the job was associated with this task of "maintainingsocial stability" "If not handled well, those people [the petitioners] can create bigproblems and affect the political prospects of my superiors," Lisaid. Beijing Representative Offices Exit For the more fortunate employees, whose offices have been allowedto stay, questions remain: What are their new responsibilities?What agency will they work for? How many of them will be employed? There are only seven people in Zhang Chengxiang's office, amongwhom, only he and the vice-director receive the benefits of being acivil servant; the other five are external staff. "We have been colleagues for many years and we get along well.It'll be hard to dismiss them. Aunt Zhang, for example, has beenthe office cleaning lady for ten years," Zhang said.
Aunt Zhang, 55, a Henan local, has two children, one is working inShenzhen and the other is studying in Beijing. According to theHubei exit project plan, she will receive some compensation afterbeing dismissed. Another difficulty for Zhang Chengxiang is how to price hisoffice's assets when selling them to a higher level governmentoffice selected by the government. His Beijing courtyard office wasbought for 4.8 million yuan but is now worth close to 20 millionyuan,a price the designated buyer is unwilling to pay. "We won't sell it at too low of a price, but the higher leveloffice cant afford to pay what we're asking for," Zhang said.
Hewent on to say that though it has been determined that these assetsmust be sold, the designated buyer may not be willing to buybecause the assets are not easy to manage and the deal has to passthrough the many audits of various levels of government. The head of a Shandong Province city-level Beijing representativeoffice echoed Zhang's view. "For Beijing representative offices, at or above city-level,purchasing the assets of their counterparts at or belowcounty-level is a catch-22. They can't afford to pay high prices,but a low price will be scrutinized by the auditing agency," hesaid.
The Road Ahead All of the 54 Beijing representative offices at or below countylevel of Hubei Province will exit Beijing before June 20. The Government Offices Administration of the State Council willissue policies to regulate the offices of local governments thatremain in Beijing by formulating their responsibilities, organizingtheir structure and creating a standard for staff integration,according to Li Ancai, director of the Beijing RepresentativeOffices Information Association. According to the Hubei exit project plan, local counties anddistricts will be allowed to send representatives to city-levelBeijing Representative offices after their own offices areeliminated; those representatives will be responsible for"maintaining social stability" for local governments. An insider revealed, in some cases the former employees ofeliminated representative offices will simply change theirpositions and continue to work in Beijing. Those Beijingrepresentative offices who have already become enterprises orrepresentative institutions of enterprises will cooperate withlocal governments to ensure that local projects continue smoothly.
Zhang Chengxiang said, the decision to force the exit of certainrepresentative offices was too sudden. All the local governmentswanted to do was hold onto their money and their projects, due tothe forced exit they will suffer great losses. The lobbying that local governments engages in when trying toattract investment from Beijing can be very expensive, somewhere inthe vicinity of 150,000 yuan for each project. Withoutrepresentative offices this cost will double and may even triple orbecome ten times higher in the future. He said, the employees ofBeijing representative offices know Beijing well and can easily getthings done.
Zhang admitted there were bribes and corruption, but stated thatbribes and corruption would remain even without Beijingrepresentative offices. "Without county-level Beijing representative offices localgovernments will be even busier when the NPC and CPPCC are heldevery year. The biggest task of county-level Beijing representativeoffices is 'maintaining social stability'. Those higher levelgovernment offices only call and tell us what to do. Who will doour job in the future?" Zhang Chengxiang continued.
According to rules outlined by his city, Zhang Chengxiang will beassigned to a new position in Beijing with his mainresponsibilities being the "maintaining social stability", lobbyingfor aid from the central government and promoting localagricultural products. Yet a friend recently called him andrevealed that he might be assigned a post in a neighboring county. "Maybe I'll return to my town or get a position in a neighboringtown. Nothing is settled.
Anyway, my office is still working,"Zhang said. Links and Sources Hubei Government Website: Sina: Image This article was edited by Rose Scobie. I am an expert from Clothes Dryers, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as radio controlled blimp , automatic ice maker.
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