Luo Zhijun is the newly elected mayor of Nanjing, capital city of east China's Jiangsu Province, and is working to bring a new atmosphere to local politics. He is going to set up a public service government, he told reporters while in Beijing participating in the on-going session of the 10th National People's Congress.

"Functions of government should run according to international practice. Since China's membership of the WTO, the government should now transfer to a government by duty' from a multi-functional government'." Its major task will be to target economic adjustment, and market social administration and the supervision of public affairs settlements to name but a few of its vital divisions, he said.

"The reform aims at changing functions of government such as raising administrative efficiency and reducing administrative costs in order to form a regulated administrative system with justice and transparency," Luo said. "Department functions should be scientifically defined and administratively examined with all approvals simplified and regulated."

In the public service government set up in Nanjing City, the functions of government are quantified by 20 indexes in five areas that include public products, service ability and quality, administrative systems and its achievements to name but a few.

Last year, 54 government departments in Nanjing were cut down to 41, 46 regulations and 150 documents were abolished and two-thirds of examination and approval procedures adopted by city administrative departments were done away with. E-government, one-stop services, administrative "super-markets" and mayoral email have been put into use. Four complaint centers have been founded for foreign enterprises, private enterprises and private scientific enterprises.

(China.org.cn by Liu Yuming, March 17, 2003)